T-shirt and flag shop owners around the country say they expect to sell out faster than they can print new stock by the time the hosts take on Guinea in the tournament's opening fixture.

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Andy, who was forty-three, was wearing a washed-out T-shirt and a pair of Crocs with a South Korean flag on them, which went nicely with the middle-aged grunginess of his shaved scalp.

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But Mark Perryman, author of Ingerland: Travels with a Football Nation, and the co-founder of the Philosophy Football T-shirt company, which organised the event, agrees with Bragg that the flag and the football team are among the few things English people have to illustrate their national identity.

BBC: NEWS | UK | England | Football - shaping a new England?