The Premier League: a (relative) haven from the nation’s political strife

Most of his early work can be found in the streets around Elland Road. It prompted a little pushback: one complaint centred on the idea that not everyone in Leeds cared about football, or was a Leeds fan, and therefore liked their telecommunications boxes grey and drab, thank you very much.

Despite that, he proved popular enough to be commissioned elsewhere in the city. Regardless of location, his messaging is consistent, often borrowed from the theme of unity that cuts through many Leeds songs and slogans: Marching On Together, All Leeds Aren’t We, We All Love Leeds. His palette is consistent, too, relying on the white, blue and yellow of the football and rugby league teams.

It is a reminder that as society grows ever more atomised, sport is often the last, enduring marker of local identity. Memberships of unions and political parties and churches have long since dwindled. Industries that once defined a whole town or city have died or disappeared. Football, in particular, is the last tie that binds.

That power is, perhaps, not always appreciated as it might be. There was a time when the street art around Elland Road was not quite so uplifting. As the author Anthony Clavane recalled in Promised Land, his memoir of growing up both Jewish and a Leeds fan in the 1970s, he used to walk past one particular piece of graffito in one of the tunnels that leads under the M621 on the way to the stadium. It read: “Hitler was a Leeds fan.”

Leeds were not, it must be stressed, the only club plagued by racists and, as Clavane puts it, outright “neo-Nazis” in that period. Plenty of other teams were shamed by sections of their support. But Elland Road was, for a while, notorious: the streets around it were “a recruiting venue for the National Front”, Clavane writes.

There were accounts of National Front leaflets being spirited into programmes; games against Tottenham, particularly, tended to bring a barrage of anti-Semitic songs. Many among the city’s black and Asian populations, like its Jewish one, had the feeling Elland Road was not for them. “If you’re not British, don’t come to Elland Road,” an editorial in The Bulldog, the National Front’s youth magazine, read.

For a long time, those stories felt like part of a mercifully distant past; that is not the case anymore. Two weeks ago, the far-right activist Tommy Robinson coaxed more than 100,000 people to the streets of the capital for a march to “Unite the Kingdom”. There was, according to the journalist Paul Mason, a distinct “football hooligan” element.

Towns across England have been festooned with the cross of St George; hotels housing migrants and asylum seekers have required the protection of the police. None of the people behind these various movements willingly links themselves with the far-right movements of the 1970s. But it is probably fair to say that many of the people who used to hand out The Flag at Elland Road agree with their aims.

In that context, it is probably no surprise that it has been an ignominious start to the football season. On the night the Premier League season started, the competition – and for that matter, the country – had to deal with the embarrassment of seeing its curtain-raiser delayed for several minutes while Antoine Semenyo, the Bournemouth forward, reported an incident of racist abuse at Anfield.

That came after England full-back Jess Carter was the subject of racist abuse while helping her team win Euro 2025, and at roughly the same time as three games in the lower leagues were being called off because of abuse.

Figures published this week by the anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out show that the number of reported incidents of abuse has almost doubled in comparison to this time last season. That rise is “concerning”, said Kick It Out’s chief executive Samuel Okafor. It “appears to be reflective of what’s happening in wider society”.

There is more football can do to tackle the issue, of course – too often, the game sees the connection to the rest of society as an explanation and excuse – but it is instructive that, while abuse remains a persistent problem, the game is now resolutely apolitical.

There have been accounts of England fans, in particular, demanding boats be stopped and making voluble objections to Keir Starmer, but at club level – certainly in the top flight – political commentary is vanishingly rare. It is likely that can, in part, be attributed to the efficacy of how behaviour is policed at England’s stadiums, as illustrated by how quickly Semenyo’s alleged abuser was removed. It may well be linked to the game’s gentrification: fans who have spent considerable sums on tickets are not likely to do anything to jeopardise them.

But it may well be linked to the same phenomenon that made the Burley Banksy so popular. Football is not just an escape, an outlet for emotion; it is, first and foremost, an identity, one which is rooted in inclusion rather than exclusion. In a stadium, especially, fans are joined together by what they are, rather than what they are not. In that sense, and perhaps only that one, football is not reflective of what is happening outside its walls. It is, while it lasts, more special for it.

Photograph by Ed Sykes/Getty Images