Monday, 7 March 2011

Man Utd - Now we see it, then we didn't!

I often find the world of football to be a place populated by people of shifting morality and opinion! A bloke can divert his run by a few metres to enable him to whack an opposing player in the throat as he passes him by and, despite the outcry of others, neither the ref' or the player's manager 'sees anything in it'!

A few days later, the same player sticks his behindside out and an opposing player obligingly sends hims tumbling. This time, although once again the ref' see 'nothing in it', this time the manager (yes, the same one as before) sees lots in it. He goes red, fumes, waves his arms like a fledgling learning to fly and remonstrates with the fourth official.

Then it gets betterer and betterer because the week later his team lose their second game on the bounce and there should have been a sending off (well, two at least from the game I saw) and the result should have been theirs. Once again, thanks to poor (biased?) refereeing, the best team lost!

What a load of tosh, and what a wonderful mirror to hold up to our society, football is becoming. I meet so many people during the course of my dog-collaring and a great number of these are always ready to point to the excesses of the groups who stand opposed (or are perhaps merely 'different' to them! They tell me how others lie and do things that demonstrate their lack of Christian whatever. They can denounce every movement made by others as wrong and yet, when the mirror is brought into play, fail to recognise the same in themselves.

Lord,
Give me the grace to see in myself the things that I so easily see in others.
To rise about the tackles and foul play of this world and keep my game pure;
To keep on running for the goal when taking a tumble might yield more.
Father, football is important, but it's not about life and death,
So help us to live because the death of Christ brings us life.
And may we come to the place where we are saved and never need face the penalty.
Amen.

1 comment:

Donald said...

A very sound insight into the game of life and football too.

I love the prayer - will use it with our school football team tomorrow and hope they remember some of it before they take to the field and emulate their heros.

Thanks,

D