"Football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that."
Footballing Lives
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Edited by Jeffrey Heskins and Matt Baker, Canterbury Press, 2006 ISBN 1-85311-725-0/978-1-85311-725-1
The Sky Sports Football Year 2006-7 lists over 60 of the 92 English League Clubs as having a chaplain. Footballing lives tells the story of some of the chaplains. As someone who in a previous "life" has organized several conferences for football club chaplains, I read the book with interest.
Edited by the co-chaplains of Charlton Athletic, the book is a collection of individual chapters by a dozen different chaplains. Inevitably some chapters are better than others. Some simply tell the writer's own story, others grapple with the issues involved in ministry to football or particular aspects of the work.
Bill Bygroves (Liverpool FC) writes about his role in reconciliation between Juventus and Liverpool following the Heysel Stadium disaster, Chris Cullick (York City) on his role in the supporters' groups successful campaign to save the club, Mary Vickers (Chaplaincy for women in sport) on women and football, Ray Dupre (Watford) on the organization SCORE which promotes sports chaplaincy in sport in the UK and beyond and Peter Amos (Barnsley) on supporting injured players.
What is football club chaplaincy all about? Alan Comfort knows the world of football better than most. He was a professional player, became a Christian while playing pro football, lost his career through injury, was ordained and because chaplain of Leyton Orient, one of his old clubs. He describes the chaplain's purpose as to "sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land" (Psalm 137:4). He continues "Chaplaincy is often a support role, an opportunity to get alongside players or club staff; to listen, to care, to remember and pray for...One of the hardest barriers to break down for any chaplain is to be accepted by the group while remaining different...Jesus became like one of us but was different". (Pages 35-36).
Owen Beament's (Millwall) moral dilemma about whether it was OK "to give the Lord a nudge" (Page 55) during the FA Cup semi final 2004 reminded me of a story the chaplain to Swindon Town told me. When the Wembley play-off was tied 3-3, a supporter entreated the chaplain "Pray, Reverend". The chaplain told me "I explained to him that I did not think prayer worked like that, but in case I was wrong, I prayed". However he resolved the dilemma, Owen Beament writes helpfully on the importance of prayer in club chaplaincy.
The book is full of thought-provoking one-liners on the nature of chaplaincy, for example: Phil Mason (Bolton Wanderers) "being church in a different and more accessible way". (Page 49) or Jeffery Heskins (Charlton Athletic) "to recognize the potential for, and help to create something sacred in, what as hitherto been regarded as secular space" (Page 182).
The book is a good read and an excellent insight into a particular application of pastoral theology.