Sport Reflects Society.

By Benji Crossley

Sport reflects society. It reflects it at its best. It reflects it at its worst. Perhaps nowhere is that more true or more obvious than England’s relationship with football.

The 70s and 80s were a period of English football marred by racism and hooliganism. It was a period of profound societal upheaval as Thatcherite reforms changed the fabric of society.

England was struggling to find its place in the modern world as it grew accustomed to no longer being a superpower. That upheaval was reflected on the terraces. Nowhere was the idea of a fundamentally broken England more starkly illustrated than at Hillsborough. Britain and football were both broken.

Then came the 90s. The Taylor Report changed stadia and, most importantly, the Premier League came along. England was reborn. Its football was changed by a Frenchman with his collar up, a Frenchman who took away his players’ Mars bars, and an Australian who put all of this behind a TV paywall. But as the Premier League grew, so did England. Blair and Ne Labour heralded Cool Britannia. Footballers became brands, clubs became global ambassadors, and England was open to the world. Nowhere was that better reflected than in the shiny all-seater stadiums beamed around the world every weekend.

The Premier League’s journey towards becoming a melting pot of nationalities, cultures and colours was reflected on the streets of England.

The scenes at Wembley for the Euro 2021 final were reflective of a broken society, reflective of people who had been told to stay inside, who had been locked away. People had been scared in their homes while their leaders partied in theirs. When the chance to break free of all that came, it happened around Wembley, at football. Football, as it always had been, became people’s escape and their vehicle for reflecting society.

If Wembley in 2021 showed football reflecting a fractured nation, then what unfolded on Tuesday night showed football taking its chance to reflect the best of English society. When Arsenal broke their 22-year title drought, approximately 100,000 people flooded the streets around the Emirates Stadium. They danced, they sang, they embraced strangers. They  reflected a modern London: a multicultural, inclusive London. As it was put on my favourite Arsenal podcast this week, “it was London as it is, not how the bots would have you believe it is”. Piers Morgan made a similar point on his show, saying that the night reflected a more “united” Britain than the far-right’s “Unite the Kingdom” march the week before.

Arsenal is a unique club. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Arsenal helped normalise and construct multicultural London. While other grounds in the 70s and 80s were simply not safe for Black players, Arsenal, mostly, was. David Rocastle, Mickey Thomas and Ian Wright were more than footballers; they were cultural anchors. For the first time, Black Londoners could see themselves represented centrally. Mickey Thomas is at the heart of, arguably, the most dramatic final day of the season ever. Ian Wright is Ian Wright. He is the bridge that extends Arsenal into the communities of South London. He turns them from a North London club into a London-wide multicultural identity. That identity extended off the pitch and into everyday culture. Through players like Thomas, Rocastle and Wright, Arsenal became a place where identity flowed both ways: players shaped the fans, and fans shaped the club
culture.

As London changed through the 90s, so did Arsenal. As the city became a suave, urbane, global capital, Arsenal too was being reshaped, most obviously by Wenger and the cosmopolitanism he brought with him. Arsenal reflected society and society reflected Arsenal. Yet even as the club evolved with a changing, gentrifying North London, it retained a sense of place strong enough to anchor identity rather than dissolve it. That is part of why North London Forever resonates so deeply as the club anthem: it is not just a song of belonging, but of memory, change and a neighbourhood being remade. And Arsenal’s story never remained confined to N5. Ian Wright had already embedded the club deep into South
London, the South London that would go on to produce Bukayo Saka and that now drives so much of the cultural heart of multicultural London.

Clever brands reflect their identity. They sense their moment. In a New Zealand context, the Warriors have sensed theirs. They have commercialised their identity to build one of New Zealand’s strongest brands. Arsenal have commercialised their identity and their standing in modern London in a similar way. Every week brings a new merchandise range, a collaboration with identities from within various London subcultures. Whether consciously or not, they have transitioned from being a site of multicultural experience into a producer and exporter of multicultural agency.
What we saw on Tuesday night at the Emirates was not simply the spontaneous expression of a diverse fanbase. It was the culmination of a decades-long social process in which Arsenal, deliberately or otherwise, aligned itself with the social transformations of London.

That history is now absorbed into the club’s identity and brand, visible in everything from kit design to global marketing, but on Tuesday night it was expressed in its purest form: a celebration that did not simply take place in London, but seemed to represent London itself.

If you think that is all rubbish, and I suspect football is now so tribal that many will, then let us at least hope those scenes offered a glimpse of what England might still become: a diverse, welcoming, joyous society, not one captured by far-right populism, and one in which football becomes a vehicle for celebration and joy rather than merely the next front in the never-ending culture wars.