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Results that don’t matter — 7 Comments

  1. YNWA!! By the way, Heineken Cup is paying a visit to Ballyfin National school tomorrow. My James has his Leinster jersey laid out ready for the morning.

  2. I think if you wanted to see the cup next year you would have to go deep into France – ASM Clermont Auvergne are in powerful form.

  3. Indeed you may be right. Back to the football though. I love it. I love Liverpool Fc most of all. I love the passion, the camaradarie, the fun, the contest, the accepting of sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, the optimism that next time, next season will be our time. I don’t think it’s the be all and end all, I don’t think it’s worth an argument or fight. Football like all sports teaches one how to lose with dignity, but possibly more importantly how to win with grace. I knew a guy once who when losing a table-tennis match would start a dispute with the referee, his opponent, his shadow. With anything that might lead to the avoidance of the inevitable. That guy just wouldn’t accept the lessons of sport. Tribalism is as unwelcome in sport to me as it is in life. YNWA – You’ll never walk alone.

  4. Simon writes ‘Tribalism is as unwelcome in sport to me as it is in life.’ And the church. Will the church ever be free of it?

  5. I think tribal identity can be something positive where it encourages a celebration of one’s own traditions while recognizing the traditions and identities of others. I think we suffer from group closure, a very negative form of tribalism that, in a situation where the tribe is a small minority, serves only to ensure the disappearance of the tribe.

  6. Wasn’t Bill Shankly being ironic in the face of the even then overhyping of the importance of football when he said it was more important than life or death?

  7. One would like to think so – yet his comment has been taken at face value by many people since.

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