English Nationalists Are Upset Because the BBC Said Dressing Up As a Crusader Might Not Be Chill

Screenshot from the BBC article in question.

This week, the BBC did an interactive article in which they posited the question of whether it’s okay to dress up like a crusader to attend football matches. It’s on the BBC’s “iWonder” section, something I’ve never heard of before and behaves a little bit like a whimsical BBC Bitesize. Remember Bitesize? The thing you didn’t revise on? The thing you ignored because you were too busy sitting in parks drinking Hooch and smoking loosely prepared roll-ups listening to The Coral from a Sony Ericsson music phone?

In the article, a timeline of the crusades is given, from 1095 to 1229, a couple of people are canvassed about their opinions relating to the dressing-up of crusaders and there’s a poll at the end asking you, yes you, the reader, whether you think it’s #chill or #totallynotchillatall.

The very existence of this article, fair and balanced in its presentation, has angered people who think that Christmas cards are a few years away from being pulped en masse and made illegal forever. A gentleman on Twitter named Simon Webb said “Tell the BBC to FUCK OFF, and tell MORE fans to wear CRUSADER outfits! Offend as many Muslims as you can!” Another user called Paul Brickman, whose display picture is him shooting an assault rifle, and cover photo an uncooked steak, said “Where do I buy my Crusader outfit then? Anything to annoy the #BBC PC Brigade.”

The England fan’s typical crusader costume consists of chainmail armour, a St. George’s cross tabard, a St. George’s cross shield and a plastic sword. Basically, these guys are trying to dress up as St. George, because he slew a dragon and that’s cool, but are ending up as crusaders, who literally impaled children on spits and ate them. It’s also a bit silly to dress up as a soldier whose job it was to cleanse the world of Islam and promote Christianity at a football tournament in France, isn’t it?

Our take? It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it is pretty fucking stupid. Why do we insist on continuously aggrandising all the bad shit we did? We’re always on about crusades and the empire. The best thing we ever did – beating the Nazis – hardly gets a mention. I dunno. Anywho, come on England!

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