Manchester United pre-1998 World Cup had a strong relationship with fans supporting both United and England.
You would be able to see the Union Jack and England flags in Old Trafford and even more so when United got to a final in the FA Cup, league cup or in Europe.
However this has diminished and the reason for this is mainly because of what happened at the 1998 World Cup in France when England got through their group finishing second behind Romania, the knockout games would be next.
England faced Argentina in the round of 16 and David Beckham was clattered into from behind by current Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone.
The Argentinian was then messing around with Beckham’s hair which led to the United legend kicking out at him whilst he was on the floor.
As we know Simeone is a master of the dark arts so he went down to the floor in agony that seemed fairly fake in order to get Beckham sent off which ended up happening.
The footballing superstar received major abuse from England fans and the press.
There were pictures of him being hung as a dead skeleton with an England shirt, he had death threats in public, bullets through the post, Arsenal fans holding up a banner saying “David Beckham Scum”, the newspapers writing horrendous headlines.
The same thing happened to Phil Neville when he gave a penalty away in 2000 against Romania being abused publicly and in the media, his wife came home to the front gates being on fire with an England flag on it.
This continued to happen with United players playing for England, Rooney in 2006 with the Ronaldo wink.
Marcus Rashford being racially abused on social media after his penalty miss in the Euro 2020 final.
England fans have also been heard singing especially in the early 2000s “stand up if you hate Man U.”
The disconnect between the north and the south is big in England and this is shown in the national team. Fans from the north can’t always go to the games because of the travel, however, because England play in the south in London it is looked at as normal but with the cost and time to go down to London being so high and long it is near impossible for northerners to go down to see their own national team.
Due to this and United being so big and consistently playing in Europe, some United fans don’t support England and it may be even more fans than you think with no Union Jack or English flags in Old Trafford.
They have been replaced by the Egypt template flag with MUFC written on it, it seems like the disconnect is still there.