It was worse for my six-year-old son Alfie, who was inconsolable. It was twenty minutes before he finally stopped sobbing under the cushion on the sofa.
He wasn’t the only one who was upset. In the pub around the corner on the estate where I live in Vauxhall, I could hear a fight breaking out onto the street straight after the game finished.
I was once like Alfie – even as an adult. I’m a big Arsenal fan, but when I became a Christian, I realised had to step back a bit. It had become clear that football was capturing my heart and… if I’m being honest… my worship.
On the London estate where I grew up, choosing a team was a seminal moment on the journey to manhood. My dad wasn’t around to inherit a team from, and my mum said I couldn’t support her beloved Liverpool because I wasn’t a scouse. So, I chose Arsenal… or maybe they chose me. And so followed a rollercoaster of highs and lows as I followed them, and my beloved England.
Estates in London are now a melting pot of cultures – but football is still king.
It is after all, a working-class sport. It was deliberately ‘introduced’ to the proletariat in the 1800s, often through churches partially as a way of engendering teamwork, but also to share the gospel.
It became a means of escape from a life of hard labour for a lucky, talented few. The context has changed since then, but whether it’s playing or watching, it still serves this same purpose.
It’s fairly universal, but I see it especially on the estate where I live. For 90 minutes (and maybe an hour or so before and after) you can enter into a different world.
It’s a chance to experience glory. To invest your hope. To be united with others in community as you support the same team, or the same nation.
These of course are all good things to desire, but we can see the fallout when things go wrong – like Alfie’s grief on the living room sofa or the frustration breaking out in the pub round the corner.
"It became a means of escape from a life of hard labour for a lucky, talented few. The context has changed since then, but whether it’s playing or watching, it still serves this same purpose."
But it’s here, of course, where a gospel opportunity lies.
It's about stepping into someone’s world, hearing their story, understanding where they seek identity, glory, meaning – and pointing to the fulfillment of these things in Jesus. Dan Strange, from Crosslands Forum, recently came to LCM to talk about this process of ‘subversive fulfillment’.
But how do you redirect someone from the temporary glory of celebrating Oli Watkins’ winning goal to the eternal glory you can experience in heaven? Or from the sense of belonging and unity in supporting the same team or country to the ultimate unity with Christ and his church?
The first thing I can do is repent. I was once an addict – investing my heart and my hopes in the performance of Arsenal and England. But I still feel, and occasionally succumb to, the temptation to fall back into this.
"Especially on estates, humility goes a long way. When it comes to evangelism, it’s critical."
On Sunday night I had to search my heart and confess to the Lord the ways I had succumbed again and to remind myself of the eternal glory set before me.
Aside from being the right (and joyful!) thing to do, it also puts me in the right place to talk to others.
Especially on estates, humility goes a long way. When it comes to evangelism, it’s critical.
On estates, there’s a long-held mistrust of authority, and sadly the church is thrown in with that. So, ‘someone from the church’ broaching the subject of sin, can quickly be interpreted as ‘yet another person talking down to me’.
When I spoke to my mate Dave who lives round the corner about the football this week, I told him about about my temptation on Sunday night - and it led naturally to talk about some the themes of worship in football and what worship means to him.
The other thing which this approach does, is that it connects you more to Christ. So, when you start talking with someone, you’re not primarily bringing yourself, but in your weakness, you’re bringing Christ. You’re allowing Christ to shine through. Dan calls this connecting others to the ‘magnetism of Christ’, and you can hear more about it here.
It may sound obvious, but conversations like the one I had with Dave, can only really be done within the context of a friendship.
The good news is that here, football also provides an opportunity, especially on estates – to make connections and friendships, which cross class and cultural boundaries.
You may not know it, but football may have already made you a better ‘cross-cultural connector’. If you’ve spent time in the world of football – whether that’s playing or watching, you have been exposed to something that is inherently working class.
I’ve seen this for myself – middle class Christians and pastors who have been involved in football, have a head-start in connecting with people from working class backgrounds.
But practically, football is a brilliant way of building these connections as well.
In my role as a missionary, I’ve helped churches build football ministries. It’s a pretty simple set-up. A five-a-side game on a regular evening, with a short talk from the Bible beforehand. But the impact has been profound.
A few years ago, one of the young guys in the team, Harry*, came over to talk to me in the pub after a game.
“What’s the secret of your marriage?” he asked me.
Harry was a good-looking guy with lots of girls interested in him, but he’d seen something in the marriages of a few of the Christians in the football team which struck him. He’d only really witnessed dysfunctional relationships previously.
This was a big step for Harry – to go beyond the banter and ask a vulnerable question.
The question opened the door and I was able to explain that our marriages weren’t perfect, but that they were based on Christlike love.
So, it’s easy to be down on football, especially after Sunday night. But football’s origins are actually missional. It was used by churches to build community especially amongst young men overlooked by the rest of society, and as a chance to share the gospel.
There’s an amazing opportunity for this beautiful game to point to real glory, and a hope that restores. Why not seize it?
Why not check out our guide to building gospel bridges as a next step?
LCM shares the gospel alongside the local church of London, equipping everyday Christians to lovingly bring a message of hope in Christ to those least likely to hear it.
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