F is for FOOTBALL

There was a time when, if you used the word football, it meant only one thing. That game played by two teams, each of eleven players, kicking a ball around a grass rectangle and hoping to put it between two vertical bars and the horizontal one that stretched across them. My dad would never have called it anything else and if I said I was going out to play football or going to a football match everyone knew exactly what I meant. Of course to give it the proper title we should probably be calling it Association Football for it appears that the word ‘soccer’ which is often used to identify the sport, comes from an alteration of the letters in ‘assoc’, the abbreviated term for association. Certainly the Americans were quick to jump on the bandwagon and since they had their own grid iron sport already called football, the eleven man game was exclusively known as soccer throughout the continent.

But it doesn’t stop there for the men from Down Under also use the word ‘football’ tagged on to the end of their Aussie Rules game so immediately confusion reigns and just to complicate the matter, both codes of rugby, League and Union, refer to their game as football, so in Australia you could be playing football and it could mean any one of four different sports.Then back here in Ireland, there has been increasing use of the word football to mean Gaelic football and quite often when I’m talking to followers or players of that sport and they talk about football, I’m not sure whether I should be carrying on a conversation about Manchester United or Kerry gaelic team. It’s all rather confusing. Why can’t we just go back to recognising football for what it is – the most popular game in the world and let all those other pale imitators, who shelter under the umbrella of the word ‘football’ stand out in the rain and find their own shelter. To be honest I like all those sports, but it’s just so confusing, don’t you think.And at the end of the day, the skills for all the sports that call themselves football, are so different and wide ranging. I think of guys at school who were fast and strong and would have been ideally suited to the grid iron game. Others who couldn’t even catch a cold, let alone a ball and would have made great blockers in the same sport. Then some who were tall but not just so fast yet could catch a ball anywhere with either hand and would have made great line out jumpers in rugby. Many who were also good catchers and speedy and would have suited playing in the centre or wing at the same game. A few who were tall, strong, fast and had good hands and might have made it at Aussie rules or even Gaelic and others who would have run through brick walls and would have enjoyed almost any of those contact ball sports. Then there were those, whose only sporting ‘skill’ was to be tough, strong and completely lacking in fear and usually made ideal candidates for the rugby front row. But a footballer was another species altogether and many played football at break time and after school and often for ‘social’ teams, theirs was a skill that was not easily translated into another sport. Yet conversely, few footballers would have excelled on the rugby or gaelic field in the same way that they did at their own sport. And I think that opinion has been underlined over the past years by the difficulties experienced by players of gaelic football and Aussie Rules football during the Compromise series that tries to combine the rules and skills of both games. I rest my case.

So what is a Christian? Is it a person who comes from a county where the main religion uses the Bible as its basis? Is it a term we use to distinguish a certain religious group from others? Is it a word which tries to signify a high degree of sophistication and respect? Is it maybe even an umbrella term for a country where God used to be at the hub of everything and while He no longer has centre stage, everyone who lives there, still regards themselves as ‘Christian’ because of history? Or is it a person who actively believes in God, not only that He exists but that through His grace we can be saved and one day live with Him in heaven? You know our land is full of ‘Christian’ churches and the churches are full of ‘Christians’ but not all of them would come under the umbrella of that last definition. Many would feel more comfortable in being classed as ‘Christian’ as opposed to ‘heathen.’ Yet in John’s book of Revelation, writing to the church at Laodicea, he is very clear about what God thinks of those who only pay lip service to the word Christian when he says ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’Sometimes it’s easy to get confused with words but in God’s mind there is no such confusion, for to Him being a Christian, means only one thing, ‘a follower of Christ, saved by repentance and faith.’Just as my earthly dad would never have tolerated any other sport impersonating football so my heavenly Father will be intolerant to the point of rejection for those who hide under the umbrella of Christianity.