Rafe Fletcher is the founder of CWG.
Neither media opprobrium nor a German manager can stop England fans singing 10 German Bombers. In the Boston suburbs last month, a pre-match rendition on the stadium concourse was a highlight of an otherwise forgettable goalless draw against Ghana.
Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again, previously re-appropriated as a Gareth Southgate tribute, was re-worked in Thomas Tuchel’s honour. “Churchill bombed your mum” replaced “you still turn me on.”
It isn’t only triumphalist mischief that irks the left. Sometimes England supporters are more overt with their politics in popular ditties like ‘Keir Starmer is a wanker’ and ‘F*** off Europe, we all voted out.’
But where fans may be an unfortunate relic of English exceptionalism, players have come to represent modern, diverse Britain. Hence even far-left agitators like Your Party MP Zarah Sultana now put on an England shirt and get behind the boys.
But it’s revealing that the two can co-exist. Old-school patriots don’t seem hung up on the fact half the England side is black or mixed race. Compare that to France where the squad’s largely immigrant background has been more controversial. From former Conservative Peer Dan Hannan’s anecdotal evidence that a Gallic friend called their game against Senegal legal versus illegal immigrants. To comments from the ex-Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that there were “no French players” in the team.
English fans have refused to play ball in any similar narrative that juxtaposes their anachronistic nationalism with on-field diversity. Former conservative adviser Nimco Ali made a contrived effort to do just that when she went after Reform MP Robert Jenrick. “Thanks to lads your party wants to deport”, was her response to Jenrick celebrating the quarter-final win against Norway.
Ethnic minority players were disproportionately represented in England’s run to the semi-finals. But Jenrick’s cultural conservativism pays little attention to race. He has been far more vehement in talking about cultural values, particularly those of Christianity. He posted an Easter message in April 2025, calling it a “peculiar quirk” that “so few seem willing to acknowledge that we are a Christian country, with Christian values, built upon and in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
And it’s in this religious realm that England’s football team are also disproportionately representative. 35 per cent of the squad are practicing and outspoken Christians against just 10 per cent of the country at large. That excludes players who may keep such beliefs private. Only Djed Spence – the first Muslim to play for England – can be authoritatively defined as practicing a religion which is non-Christian.
The core of that God Squad comes from players with African or Caribbean ancestry. Awkwardly, it’s also those players who are more likely to offend the tolerant sensibilities the team is mean to stand for. Like defender Marc Guehi, son of a Christian minister originally from the Ivory Coast. When the Premier League promoted a LGBT inclusion campaign in 2024, it was proudly fronted by Harry Kane and Jordan Henderson. Guehi defiled the tribute by scrawling “I love Jesus” on his own rainbow armband.
Guehi’s evangelical Christian upbringing may chafe against the liberal social norms widely accepted in Britain today. But Christianity still engenders a sense of civic belonging. Although few of Guehi’s fellow citizens carry the same religious fervour, his practices are culturally familiar. More broadly, they are part of a Christian foundation that shapes Britain’s institutions and laws.
His beliefs also sever the tribalism that people like Jenrick criticize Britain for importing. Guehi can pay homage to his ancestry, but it is Christianity that forms his core identity. And that doesn’t get placed in opposition to his Britishness. Therefore, his new homeland becomes a place to thrive rather than act against. Perhaps why Bukayo Sako, a teammate who also shares an African Christian background, has the most impressive educational achievements in the squad. Saka achieved four A*s and three As in his GCSEs.
Critics delighted in Jenrick’s own errors as he engaged in this Chistian advocacy. He referred to “Psalm” rather than “Palm Sunday”. But such nitpicking misunderstands the point. One can believe in Christianity’s cultural power to provide tangible unity without having to be a great theological scholar.
I am agnostic but firmly Christian. I go to St George’s Anglican Church in Singapore every week. Its low-church services attract a large cross-section of society. It is the only place where I truly mix outside of an Anglosphere expat bubble, and form relationships that don’t revolve around where we come from.
Putting aside the existential, the practical benefits for children are also huge. Church-going kids get better grades, report higher purpose and lower levels of despair, and reject the idea that morality is whatever works for you at any given moment. In other words, Christianity both widens horizons and grounds you in something. So too England’s Christian players are better integrated into a social fabric. In such a manner that even supposedly philistine fans see them representing the same national identity.
I get why people reject the centralizing of Christianity in a values-based civic identity. It may seem inherently exclusionary to other faiths and non-believers. Moreover, Brits only need look to the sectarianism inside their own isles to see Christianity has been historically disharmonious. But it is nonetheless an actual tool for assimilation, unlike the fatuous non-exclusionary values of tolerance or diversity.
It does not need a new proselytizing national mission. But it should form a core part of education. It should be something everyone is familiar with. And Britain shouldn’t be reluctant to recognize that immigrants sharing those beliefs may be better integrated that those who don’t.
Nations are ultimately constructs that require foundations. However distasteful some may find it, it’s what England’s fans look to in their own unique re-telling of Britain’s standing alone narrative. Christianity is another historical bedrock.
We may not be ready for Onwards, Christian Soldiers as the new national anthem. But if certain commentators see diversity as core to England’s rejuvenation, we must also recognize the religious core behind this new God Squad.