Are English fans** more tribal** than any other fans in the world?
I've always felt England is a country at war with itself. Postcode areas at war with each other. Rival families at war with each other. 'Local businessmen' at war with each other. Towns at war with other towns, cities with other cities. The North with the South. The rich with the poor. The Tories with everyone else. The right with the left etc etc... Mind you, as a whole, the human race is at war with itself and always has been. To me, England is a country that both hates itself and everyone else, yet somehow still feels superior to everyone else too. Some will pull together when England play, but much of it stems from mutual xenophobia and other corrosive things such as nationalism and patriotism. I'm not really sure how in pans out elsewhere in the world. I know there are many horrible and destructive club rivalries, but I don't know if they are put aside when their national teams play. I wonder about the Basque regions and Catalonia. When I was in Krakow, Poland, I was advised not to wear a Cracovia or Wisla shirt in public for the risk of getting an axe in my head. I don't really know. I've always thought England (and the UK in general) was a place tearing itself apart, but the more I travel the more i see it as a human thing rather than an English/British thing. Overall, humans just don't tend to get along with other humans very well.