Faith in football? The beautiful game interrogated

This may be of interest or a complete turn off but since I have been asked to be part of a Panel discussion at Greenbelt with this title next week it has really made me think. If you can’t wait for the new season to start maybe you could think along with me.

I have been reflecting on my own very strange attachment to The Beautiful Game and what it means for me spiritually. I re-visited Desmond Morris’s book ‘The Soccer Tribe’ which for me is a great book from an anthropological/sociological point of view with lots of great pictures! It is a bit dated (1981) but much of it still relevant. I found link interesting which comments on this book in looking particularly at pre-match and post-match rituals.

The strange attachment that so many have on the planet is summed up well in Morris’s Introduction:

“The human animal is an extraordinary species. Of all the events in human history, the one to attract the largest audience was not a great political occasion, nor a special celebration of some complex achievement in the arts or sciences, but a simple ball-game - a soccer match. On a June day in 1978, it is claimed that more than a thousand million people tuned in to the World Cup Final between Argentina and Holland. This means that something like one-quarter of the entire world population stopped whatever they were doing and focused their attention on a small patch of grass in South America where twenty-two brightly clad figures were kicking a ball about in a frenzy of effort and concentration.

If this occurrence was monitored by aliens on a cruising UFO, how would they explain it? What would they record in their ship's log? A sacred dance of some kind? A ritual battle? A religious ceremony, perhaps? If their curiosity was aroused and they carried out a survey of human cities around the globe, they would quickly discover that almost every major settlement boasted at least one large, hollow building with a green hole in the middle on which similar ball-kicking rituals could be observed at regular intervals. Clearly, ball-kicking has some special significance for the human species - a unique obsession not shared by any of the hundreds of thousands of other life forms visible on the planet earth.

The biggest problem for the puzzled aliens would be discovering the function of this strange activity. Why do thousands of people do it and why do millions of other people watch them doing it? What possible fulfilment can it bring? On the surface it appears to be little more than a child's playground game, a harmless pleasure gained from the realization that striking a spherical object produces a much more spectacular movement than hitting any other shape. For children, this is merely an amusing pastime, part of the business of exploring the physical properties of the environment, like skipping, jumping, rolling a hoop or spinning a top. But unlike these other juvenile actions, ball-kicking, for some strange reason persists into adulthood and acquires the trappings of a major industry. It is no longer accompanied by high-pitched laughter, but by deep groans, shouts and roars from manly throats. It is now a serious endeavour, with every move dissected and debated in earnest tones, the whole ritual elevated to the level of a dramatic social event. There must be more to it than meets the eye. Since the actions themselves are so simple, the true explanation must be that they have somehow become loaded with a symbolic significance’.
(Morris, Desmond (1981), The Soccer Tribe, p7, Jonathon Cape Ltd)

As a Chelsea supporter I spent the whole European Club Championship final in a great state of stress and nearly turned the television off during the shoot out! I keep wondering what was all that about, why I felt so strongly and why it had such an effect on me. The sadness took a couple of days to finally get over and I found myself again wondering what was going on.

I can’t say the experience was spiritual in any way that means anything to me. It does leave me often with a vague emptiness - more when we lose but even sometimes when we win.

I still have many more questions than answers. I am still not sure what football does for me in a spiritually positive way. In the main my spirituality is fairly low on liturgy, tradition and ceremony (all part of football) and I came to faith by discovering that these are not necessary for me to find a relationship with God. I can find other things I do, such as wandering in a city, talking to friends, or taking photographs much more spiritually uplifting. And yet when the first football results come in during mid-August I shall be anxiously waiting to see what Scolari can deliver!

Some of my questions are........

Does my attachment have anything to do with my childhood in London and my first match at Stamford Bridge with my dad at the age of 6?

I loved playing the game (not very well) and how much is there an appreciation of the skill and the exhilaration of doing something physical at a high standard?

What is that ecstatic feeling when the oppositions net bulges? (Morris suggests that it is like getting your prey in the hunt)

Is it therapeutic to get into football fundamentalism of ‘goodies and badies’ for 90 minutes?

Do I just like seeing something I can identify with ‘winning’?

Is it just another type of drama which touches our human condition just like theatre, films, poetry, etc? It has the same mixture of ‘playing’ with reality and fantasy and just happens to one that many can relate to and has an unpredictable end.

Why do only a few sports do the same for me?

It seems to have little to do with my faith but maybe deep down…….?

Forget all that. Is it just fun not to be taken too seriously?

Maybe talking to other Christians about the obsession of football is just like introducing oneself at an AA Meeting and divulging “I am Roy, a football supporter……………”

What do think?????