“I’m having a bit of an English flag moment,” says Suzanne Moore (6 July). On Tuesday we went to Old Trafford in Manchester to watch England play India at cricket, with the intention of introducing our Irish daughter-in-law to the game. The first thing we noticed was the number of white guys selling Indian flags. The second was the fact that the spectators were made up of many Indian families. India won and the jubilation of the crowd was immense, Indian flags were waved all over the ground, and the atmosphere stayed friendly in the summer sunshine.
In the train on the way back to London were several young Indian men who had been at the cricket. They were glued to a laptop watching the World Cup football between England and Colombia. Their overwhelming joy when England won was unconditional. A country at peace with itself, multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-coloured and multi-patriotic.
Lynn Maree
Whitstable, Kent
• The Guardian must be horrified at what a PR triumph the World Cup is turning out to be for Vladimir Putin, but Tom Rosenthal’s article nailed it (Message to the English: come to Russia and feel the love, Journal, 3 July). It is fantastic and one wonders who’ll turn up to represent the British state should England reach the final and what shade of red their faces will be.
Most of the mainstream British media were falling over themselves to scare England fans away from going to the World Cup. After our embarrassingly low numbers of fans in Russia has been shown up by the tens of thousands following Peru or Columbia, how many England fans must now be scrambling to make it to the semi-final?
Tim Barlow
Chester
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