Salford City fan Hugh Wright hits out at Gary Neville after being left “disgusted” and “offended” by his remarks earlier this week.
The Ammies supporter criticised Gary Neville for accusing “angry, middle-aged white men” of using the Union Jack to foster division in society.
Neville claimed he demanded the flag be removed from one of his Manchester property developments, linking it to societal divisions.
Wright called Neville’s remarks “disgusting” and “offensive,” arguing they wrongly connected flag displays to a synagogue attack in Heaton Park, which he said was unrelated.
Wright defended the English flag as a symbol of national pride, not racism, and accused Neville of misunderstanding ordinary Salford residents.
GB News host Nana Akua noted Neville’s comments seemed to conflate flag-waving with racism, which Wright found baffling and unjustifiable.
‘Gary Neville, who lives in his mansion, has nothing but contempt for the people of Salford.’
Salford City fan Hugh Wright shares his ‘disgust’ at Gary Neville’s claims that division in the UK has been sparked by ‘middle-aged white men’ and the flying of British flags. pic.twitter.com/t3wvvZXnyu
— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 8, 2025
Interviewer: “What do make of Gary Neville saying these things? It just doesn’t seem very sportsmanly of him saying as he played for England.”
Hugh: “No, I must say I’m disappointed and disgusted as a Salford City fan at Gary Neville’s comments.
“I just can’t really understand them, to be honest, implying that the attack on the synagogue in Heaton Park had anything to do with the flags that people have been putting up around Salford and Manchester the last few weeks.
“I mean, it’s just stupid, if not offensive. You know what mean? He just has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Interviewer: “Just stick to football. It does seem a bit misguided of him to conflate the two, but I guess what he’s trying to get at, if I’m going to be fair to him, is that he’s trying to talk about races.
“That’s where he’s going with it. That’s the connection, the only connection that he’s trying to make.
“And it would imply if that is the connection that he’s referring to these people carrying the English flag as potential racists.
“So I mean, that’s the implication, in my view, if he’s conflating them because otherwise I’m struggling to find if he’s calling it divisive where the connection is.”
Hugh: “Yeah, I well, that’s the problem with it, isn’t it? I mean, what he said was so baffling that you have to stretch to try to justify, you have to basically guess what on earth he’s on about.
“The fact is we know who did the synagogue attack, who murdered those people. He wasn’t a middle-aged white man. He wasn’t a fan of Nigel Farage. He wasn’t going around Salford putting up flags, was he?
“So the idea that the two are in any way related is just ridiculous. It’s just stupid.
“And this is a flag that, I mean, you know, we’ve all got male relatives who fought in the World Wars under that flag to stop anti-Semitism and that kind of thing.
“And the idea that these flags are now somehow symbols of division and that these are somehow related to this horrific attack, it’s just offensive to the memory of all our ancestors and those who fought and those who died.”
Interviewer: “Well, exactly. It was indeed England who helped to stop that war and it was against Hitler and Nazism.
“So for the linking now of the two with an Islamic extremist who tries to kill Jewish people at a synagogue, I’m not really seeing it.
“I suppose when he’s calling things divisive, people sometimes see the flags as divisive. Do you see the English flag as divisive?”
Hugh: “No, not at all. The English flag, it represents the country I was born in, the country that my parents were born in, going back forever.
“It’s a beautiful flag for a beautiful place and one of the greatest countries in history, probably the greatest country ever. It’s not divisive to celebrate that, to love your country. You know what I mean?
“And you know, you get around Salford, I’m from Salford, I’ll admit there’s some bits of Salford which aren’t as nice as they could be, you know, but you go around them now and see them daub with England flag after England flag and it’s quite moving really that people, even if they live in kind of the rough bits, they still find something to love about the place they live.
“And that’s what Gary Neville who lives in his mansion, looks like, you know, he wanted to build a teletubbie mansion once, I don’t know if he ever managed it. But, you know, he’s got nothing but contempt for people that live in Salford.”
Interviewer: “Well, maybe he does, I don’t know about that, I mean, he’s not here to defend himself, he’s got contempt for people in Salford, but he’s definitely got contempt for white men, middle-aged white men, who he’s carrying the flag.
“But in that respect, though, he has said something that has put him in a difficult position because he is conflating now whiteness with being English.
“So what he’s actually said is quite divisive by assuming that somebody who is English will be a white person carrying the flag.
“And I’m English, I was born in Newcastle, I’m a Geordie, I have a Union Jack dress, and I carry the flag proudly. So that’s a problem for what he’s saying, do you not think?”
Hugh: “Yeah, definitely. It’s an example you often get of when you get woke people, for want of a better word, who don’t really think that deeply about what they’re saying.
“Someone like Gary Neville, no offence, but he’s not the deepest thinker on earth is he?
“I’d say you could expect whether he decides to opine about a topic like the rise of antisemitism or English national identity that he’s gonna put his foot in it like that and as you know as you’ve shown there that’s just exactly what he’s done.
“He’s ended up creating, he’s ended up supporting a view which he should be opposing really.”
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