Raise the Flag is an England fans' initiative dreamt up and organised by Mark Perryman and Hugh Tisdale, co-founders of Philosophy Football supported and funded by the Football Association.

In October '97 Mark was at the fateful 0-0 draw in Rome which secured England's automatic qualification for France '98. As kick off approached, missiles thrown at the England end, with the Italian riot police running amok, the home fans created a huge Italian flag with thousands holding up red, white and green cards. This gave Mark an idea...

With Hugh providing the design template the pair approached the FA who despite initial misgivings backed the proposal wholeheartedly. The first 'Raise the Flag' (as it became known) was at England vs Saudi Arabia, June 1998 on t he eve of France '98. We've done 'Raise the Flag' at every England game since and it has become a new England tradition.

The pictures here are of the latest, and biggest, Raise the Flag. A t-shirt on every one of Wembley's 90,000 seats to create two huge St George Cross's, lasting not just the 90 seconds of 'God Save the Queen' but the entire 90 minutes of the game.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Photography by Simon Green

England Icon (away) T-shirt , as worn by the team of helpers available from Philosophy Football.

On Saturday Manda and I traveled to Wembley Stadium at the invitation of Mark Perryman to help organise 'Raise the Flag'. For those of you who don't want to know the score, please look away now.

Raise the Flag is a fans initiative, supported by the FA, the idea for which came to Mark in Rome, 1997, as a hail of coins rained down on him from the Italian fans.

Italian Ultra supporters - not the usual role models - were holding their flag formation aloft. Mark thought a similar display could be a way to demonstrate the positive side of England supporters.

Now every England home game features Raise the Flag and he hopes it could be a feature in the World Cup.

"It's something you can become part of," he says. "A symbol of pride in your team. A symbol of the fans and the flag coming together."

BBC: England fans raise flag of pride (31 May 2006)

This was my first visit to Wembley since 1999 when a young Michael Owen came on late to score a 90th minute goal in a 6 - 1 thrashing of Lichtenstein. I had been warned that I would be disappointed by the new Wembley Stadium but upon entering the empty arena I have to say that I wasn't disappointed at all. It looked to me to be everything that a modern football stadium should be and everything that the old Wembley - for all it's history and charm - hadn't been.

With our fellow Raise the Flag volunteers we set about strapping concertinard red or white cards to the seats, paying careful attention to the layout so that when they were raised above fans' heads, upon the playing of God Save the Queen, they would form a giant Cross of St George flag.

For me 'Raise the Flag' is not about 'reclaiming the flag' it is about projecting a positive image of support for England, and sometimes extending the hand of friendship to foreign fans. I don't feel that I need to reclaim the flag because it is already mine. True, it is a sad fact that the England flag is used by racists, but national flags are used by racists across the world, not just in England. Racists use them in Scotland and Wales too. The difference is that in Scotland and Wales, to their credit, the governments and civic institutions fly their national flags with pride and do not regard them as the preserve of racists, eccentrics, white-van-man, nationalists or footy fans. In England, by way of contrast, the government is British and so too are most of the civic institutions, and there appears to be a political imperative to NOT fly the English flag; to prevent patriotic identification with England, and even to guard against it.

Even the colossal Wembley Stadium, England's national football stadium, has just one small flag flying outside it.

Raise the Flag is an antidote to this official negativity that surrounds our flag. It is one nation under one flag; it is fun, it is engaging, it is positive, it is inclusive, and it supports our national team. And importantly, it is a bottom-up initiative that comes from the fans and relies on volunteers and 15-odd-thousand fans each matchday in order for it to work.

As for the match? Well, the least said about that the better. It wasn't great but we won. The atmosphere wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was still a far better and more cordial atmosphere than the atmosphere that I remember at the old Wembley. Unlike the bad old days I never heard the Pope or the IRA mentioned once. Unfortunately, what I did hear was the incessant beating of the England band's drum and their repetitious rendition of 'The Great Escape'. Now don't get me wrong, I love the England band, I like drums, and I like the theme to The Great Escape. But please not for 90-minutes non-stop lads, it's a form of music torture that drowns out the traditional spontaneous crowd noise and humour. And please cut out the Rule Britannia too.

Tonight we take on Croatia with the prospect of making Gordon Brown's nightmare a reality: England in the World Cup. C'mon England!