19th March 2024

If you’re a follower of the ‘beautiful game’, you’ll understand that, as a Newcastle United supporter, I’ve known a lot of pain over the years. The glory days were long past, and every time we seemed to be about to claim the honours, strangely lacklustre performances by the lads in black and white stripes cruelly doused our fevered expectations. But all that changed on Sunday just gone, when they defeated Liverpool at Wembley to win the Carabao Cup – what we used to know as the League Cup. 70 years of waiting for domestic silverware, and finally it’s arrived! In the North East, only Sunderland supporters will be crying.

But in a dangerous world of great suffering and uncertainty, isn’t this getting things completely out of proportion? It’s only a game, a sporting entertainment, a pastime. Speaking of people who treated football like a matter of life and death, the late, great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly observed, ‘I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.’ If that sounds way OTT, you’ve not grasped the emotional commitment and loyalty involved in being a football fan. You don’t, can’t, change your allegiance no matter how badly they’re doing, how much they’ve disappointed you, how little they deserve your devotion. Complete strangers gather, united by one thing alone, their common love and commitment to their team; meddle with that at your peril!

I wonder if our neighbours see anything like such emotional commitment and loyalty in us, in the people we are, in the way we do church. Do we offer anything to stir the blood, let alone seem more serious than life and death?

Ken Stewart