THE Bishop of Lancaster, Dr Jill Duff, led a carol service in Wembley Stadium last week. She said afterwards that it had been “a reminder that the beautiful game and faith both bring people together in hope and community”.
The service was held at the end of an event hosted by the Football Association (FA), “Christmas: A Celebration of Christianity and football”, on 8 December.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, donning a Liverpool FC scarf, opened the event with a speech about the similarities between faith and football.
Other speakers included the FA’s head of inclusion and diversity, Dal Darroch, who spoke about the historical links between football and Christianity. “Faith at its simplest, is belief — belief that there’s something you can’t quite see yet,” he was reported by the Religion Media Centre as saying. “And football is much the same. Every team, every supporter, every young player stepping onto the pitch carries a sense of belief in possibility, in improvement in each other.”
The former captain of Crystal Palace FC Joel Ward, in conversation with the Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas, attributed his club’s winning of the FA Cup this year to the power of prayer. “We all knew it wasn’t because of us individuals, it was collectively because we chose to put God at the centre and to put God before anything else,” he said. During last season, he said, “there were more people praying [before matches] than there were left in the changing room in terms of first team players.”
Dr Duff said in a statement that it had been “such a joy” to “lift up the name of Jesus” in one of the biggest stadiums in Europe.
“The whole evening was a reminder that the beautiful game and faith both bring people together in hope and community.”
