Richard Kurt of the Red Issue magazine - whose website has three million imprints per month from 150,000 users - claims to speak for many thousands of United fans when he says: 'The fundamental thing is that Manchester United see themselves as an international, multinational club, not a provincial city club. We are a globally visioned brand. We're not about England, but about the world. Nationality doesn't matter."
On the face of it, such a view would seem to be a more sophisticated expression of the opinion among United fans that Old Trafford is - as the banner above their heads on match day proclaims - 'The Republic of Mancunia'.
Kurt continues: 'United fans might support France, Argentina, China... there's more confluence there. We have a Scottish manager and England are deemed to be Protestant, Queen and country and all that bollocks. 'I reckon 80 per cent of United fans don't support England. You wouldn't take a flag of St George to United.
Surely, though, there is a difference between not actively engaging in jingoism and rejecting outright the notion of supporting the national team? As Kurt sees it: 'Anti-England songs have been around for a few years, but they've been written about in the press recently because the crowds are so quiet the reporters have heard them clearly. At Leicester two weeks ago there were six or seven songs - particularly Are You England in Disguise? - and the Leicester fans reacted strongly. Leicester is an England-supporting city and that's the sort of people - flag-of-St-George-waving, Little England, Sun- reading people - that we want to wind up. We'd sing them at West Ham, Leeds, Newcastle, places like that. It is political, but it's also sophisticated. I'm quite proud of it.
Kurt's is a widely held view, to judge from the numbers singing at Leicester. Another fan, who asked not to be named, said: 'The dyed-in-the-wool United fans will always be United first, England second - if at all. Why? There was always a lot of barracking of United players when England played at Wembley and, when they return there, it will be back to square one. I can't see it ever improving. There's a bit of a persecution complex and it's never going to change. It eased when England were playing around the country, but all the London fans will be giving United players grief again back at Wembley. Because of that, certain people at United have a perverse enjoyment in England's failures.
Challenging the flag is an exercise fraught with danger when engaging in any sort of dialogue with some of the Brownshirt tendency who support England. Theirs is a mindless, often sad militancy, borne out of all sorts of social deficiencies and misguided notions of racial integrity. On this point alone, it is easy to see the United argument. As Tony Smith, a United fan, wrote in a column in the Manchester Evening News yesterday: 'You rarely see "MUFC" painted on a St George's Cross at an international game. Apart from anything else, it wouldn't go down too well with the rest of the England fans.
Many United fans believe England have often used up their best players, sending them back injured. Steve Coppell's United career was effectively ended when he suffered a knee injury playing for England against Hungary in 1981, and Bryan Robson was forever missing matches through overplaying.
Smith makes a sound point about Beckham and the way he was treated before his more recent sanctification. 'After France 98,' Smith writes, 'United fans reacted to the worst abuse of Beckham by winding up West Ham supporters with chants of "Argentina!" It was a daft and harmless response to the effigies and dartboards designed around Beckham's image. I don't personally know any United fans who weren't pleased to see England beat Argentina last year, but the chant reappears from time to time. It's partly a wind-up, but partly I think to distance United supporters from the less desirable followers of England.
Another United season-ticket holder agrees that a lot of the antagonism is 'a wind-up', part of the ritual exchange between rival fans. 'But,' he says, 'to insinuate that United supporters dislike England is wide of the mark. We are after all - most of us, anyway - English.
Kurt makes a link between the ostracism of Beckham after he was sent off against Argentina at France 98 and the treatment two years later of Phil Neville. 'He made a mistake against Romania at Euro 2000 and we had it all over again. Our view towards the rest of the country after that was: "You ungrateful bastards." '
A final word from Kurt: 'Alex Ferguson... has this siege mentality. He picks a target and starts fighting it. Quite often his target is England. Being hated by the rest of the country has kept us going for the past 15 years. United fans don't care what other fans think. If we can wind up the flag-wavers we will.
'International football is several levels down from the Champions League. The standard of play at the World Cup? Well, we watched and sneered. It was arguably a lower standard even than the Premiership.'