What Is Culture, Really? A Personal Journey Through Football, Flags, and Who We Let In

One of the greatest gifts you have is one you never seem to open.

You hold on to it, brightly wrapped, comforting, familiar, and you smile, thinking you have everything you need. But you never look inside. You never ask what it really contains. You celebrate the colours of the box, the careful way it’s wrapped.

“This box is mine,” you might say. “This belongs to me.”

But the truth is, the real gift isn’t the box, it’s what’s inside.

It’s in unwrapping it, opening it, and examining its contents.

And like a child who digs deep into that box, pulling out the thing they really wanted, the box no longer matters. It’s thrown to one side, destined for the bin. Because now, in your hands, you have what really matters.

What is it?

What can I do with it?

I want to show it off! But first, let’s play with it.

You see, the wrapped box represents your culture and identity; the things handed to you. And it’s only when you strip away the aesthetics of the paper and ribbon that you get to see inside.

But first, it begins with courage; the courage to open the present.

To enquire rather than assume.

To question, rather than blindly believe what you’ve been told the box is.

If you can do that, really do it, without fear or pride, you’ll become very wise. And very rich. Not financially, but rich in life. You’ll grow richer as a human being. Because to question yourself is the only way you’ll ever understand who you truly are. It’s the only way you’ll ever advance. And it’s the only way you’ll ever become the best version of yourself.

That’s what led me to start questioning culture.

We hear that word a lot, culture, but do we really know what it means? What actually is it?

I didn’t come to that question through a book or a debate. I came to it as a kid, watching my dad as he fixated at the football on the television. I’d see him scream in joy when we scored and curse in rage when we lost. It fascinated me. His emotions were real, raw, unfiltered. And I was drawn in.

So I watched too and began to mirror him. I cheered when he cheered. I cried when he cried. I was angry when he was angry. I didn’t understand the game yet, but I felt it, because he did. And through football, I was pulled into something that felt bigger than me.

But it wasn’t England, not at first.
It was Millwall.

My dad took me to the matches, and Millwall taught me things. You stand your ground. You don’t run. You sing louder than anyone. You wear the colours. You learn the chants. You become part of something tribal, something that feels like culture.

You’re welcomed in like family. But at the same time, you’re told who you’re supposed to hate.

West Ham.

No one really questions it. You just know they’re the enemy. That’s what you’re told. That’s what gets passed down. You start singing songs about them because everyone else is, and that hatred builds. It becomes part of you, not because you chose it, but because it came with the shirt.

Some say the rivalry goes back to old dockers, East versus South London, competing for jobs along the Thames. Others point to the 1926 General Strike, when West Ham-linked dockers joined the strike and some Millwall-linked dockers didn’t, deepening resentment. And maybe that’s true. Maybe it all started there.

But what’s striking is that a lot of people who hate West Ham today don’t even know why. They just do, because they were told to. Because it’s tradition. And that’s worrying.

Shouldn’t we ask why?

Shouldn’t we be critical of what we inherit, even when it comes wrapped in colours and chants?

Over time, the rivalry escalated into something violent. Millwall’s Bushwackers. West Ham’s Inter City Firm. Hooligan culture turned the chants into threats. The loyalty into territory. The games into battles. It became a performance of identity, a way of saying, “I belong to this.” That’s culture too.

Even today, the clubs rarely meet, but the tension lives on, like a ghost story. It’s embedded into identity.

And that’s when I started asking: what else have I inherited without question?

Why is that such a big thing to me in my life? I had nothing to do with these rivalries. I wasn’t in the dockyards. I wasn’t in the terraces when the fights broke out. But I’ve been brought up to support a team, which is fine. I love Millwall. 

But why do I have to hate people?

Why are people telling me who to hate based on the past?

This was culture in motion, culture passed down, culture acted out.

Culture, if we define it, is meant to be a shared set of values, beliefs, behaviours. But do we all believe the same things? No.

Do we all act the same way? Absolutely not.
Even language, the thing we most clearly share, isn’t exclusive anymore. Some of us speak multiple languages. Some switch between cultures every day.

And even English, the very language we pride ourselves on, wasn’t born here in isolation. It’s a mash-up of Latin, French, Norse, and Germanic roots, shaped over centuries by the very cultures some now claim are “foreign.” So even our language, this thing we use to mark out what’s British, is the result of invasion, mixing, and evolution. It’s not something we invented from scratch. It’s something we inherited, just like everything else.

So what is our shared culture, really?

We like to say Britain is a “Christian country.” But most Brits today aren’t churchgoers. In fact, a rising number now identify as atheist or non-religious. Alongside them are Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, people of all faiths who live, work, and raise families here.

And yet somehow, Islam is singled out. Treated as though it’s the one that doesn’t fit. The one that can’t integrate. The one that poses a threat.

But what about the Muslim doctor who saves your life in surgery?
The Muslim shopkeeper who sells you bread and milk every day?
The Muslim football fan who proudly wears the England shirt during the Euros?

We never talk about them. The focus is always on the extreme. The terrorist. The “other.”

We base everything on a single representative example, it’s called the representativeness heuristic, where one image sticks, and blocks out the truth.

The Muslim who quietly integrates doesn’t register. He’s unseen.

Because the eye, especially the white British working-class gaze, has been trained to only see the worst. To fixate on the poor, the angry, the unfamiliar.

So let me ask another question: why are we so often told what our culture is?

If culture was something we were truly born with and to be, something authentic to who we are, then surely it would arise naturally from within us.

But it doesn’t. It’s passed down. It’s taught, like a script.

We’re told what to sing. What to wear. Who to hate.

If culture really came from within, it wouldn’t need to be drilled into us. So our culture could be anything then?

So then, how real is it?

How much of what we call culture is just something external, being imposed?
And if it’s imposed, then how much are we truly a part of it?

Yes, I accept that we have a shared history.
We can point to the Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, Churchill, the World Wars.

We can trace ideas of British identity back to William the Conqueror, or the Norman invasion, or the Anglo-Saxons.

But here’s the thing: at what point did we all “arrive” at this culture? Can each of us trace a family member back to the Magna Carta? Or were our ancestors elsewhere, moving, fleeing, working, building lives in other places?

Many of us are only here today because of migration, because of the movement of people crossing borders to survive or to start again. So why do we restrict that now? Why are we so obsessed with freezing culture in place?

Because a frozen culture is a dead one.

A living culture breathes, adapts, and grows.
It absorbs, reflects, and evolves with its people.

But the more we try to nail it down, the more we kill it.

And then we mistake the skeleton for the living thing.

We’ve seen this explored through popular culture too, films like American History X and This Is England. These stories don’t just show people doing things, they show how people start to believe that culture is who they are, not what they do. How fast did that culture turn on itself?

You look in the mirror, and you don’t just see yourself, you see your culture.

The whiteness of your skin, the texture of your hair, the natural smell of your body.
You go outside, and you scan the street for people who look like you. You nod at them, maybe silently think: you’re like me.
And in that moment, you define culture by appearance. By comfort. By proximity.

But that’s where the illusion starts to break down.

Because someone might look like you. They might speak English fluently. They might wear the same brands.

But the moment you catch a Russian twang, or a foreign surname, or a difference in rhythm, you notice. You re-categorise them. They’re not “us” anymore. It’s not just about skin colour. It’s about familiarity. And familiarity gets shaped by accent, clothes, posture, even walking pace.

In working-class circles, the Stone Island badge can be a cultural passport. It says: I’m part of this. But wear a suit, and you’re “posh.” Wear a tracksuit, and you’re either “one of us” or, if you’re Black, you’re suddenly part of something else. Because Black British culture is rarely seen as British culture. It’s seen as West Indian, African, urban, something added on, never central.

So then what is it really about?

If it’s not just skin. If it’s not just history. If it’s not even whiteness.

What is it then?

What is the line we’re drawing? And who keeps holding the pen?

We're told to hate the refugee. We're told to hate the immigrant coming in. We're told to hate everyone and anyone who isn’t us, who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t feel like us, who doesn’t do as we do. Who don’t eat their breakfast at the same time. We’re told they bring crime, as if crime was somehow absent before they arrived. 

But there were hooligans roaming the streets long before. People getting the Glasgow smile from rival fans. There were the Kray twins. The Richardsons. Organised crime wasn’t invented by immigrants, it was already here.

Every culture has crime. Every culture has its flaws. But instead of facing our own darkness, we point fingers at someone else’s. We highlight the bad in others and pretend we have none ourselves. And that's not culture. That’s scapegoating.

There’s nothing wrong with embracing a culture that thrives on hope and not hate. There’s nothing wrong waving flags and showing support, so long as that doesn’t entail you having to put someone else’s down. There’s nothing wrong with a pride built on love rather than hate. 

That’s what culture could be: not a script, not a flag, not a list of enemies…

But a living thing.
Something you co-create, question, and share. Something worthy of being loved. 

But for those pulled into hatred, maybe that’s where you need to open the gift: the gift of asking why?

One of the greatest gifts you have is in the palm of your hands yet it is one you never open.

Sometimes asking:

Why do I think this way?
Why do I feel like this?
What made me believe what I believe?

Why do I hate them so much?

Maybe this Is the greatest thing you could ever do, and by doing this, well, that’s where you find out where culture is really at. 

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