May is an exciting but nail-biting time for football fans.
It is that time of the year when fans outside the Premiership are either longing for promotion, staring at mid-table mediocrity, or hoping they will avoid relegation. For many followers of football teams, the season seems like a rollercoaster ride.
My team Ipswich never do it the easy way. This season they didn’t seal automatic promotion till the last match of the season. I managed to watch their last two matches. I was in person at Southampton to see a tense but engaging 2–2 draw and managed to see the last match of the season on Sky Sports at our local. Two early goals and another added later got the three points that assured us of promotion.
Our young manager, Kieran McKenna has now navigated the team to three promotions in four seasons. The only concern is that the last promotion to the Premiership in 2024 was followed by instant relegation in 2025.
I do not have a crystal ball so cannot predict how next season is going to go. (They do say that it is the hope that kills us!)
There was a nice piece on Ipswich’s promotion in the Sunday Times at the weekend. The author, David Walsh quoted some words from T.S. Eliot’s poem Little Gidding:
“We shall not cease from exploring.
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Walsh adds, “My guess is McKenna will return to the Premier League and do better.”
Well, we hope so, but we will have to wait and see.
Yesterday my wife and I went to see a magnificent performance of Bach’s St John’s Passion at the Brighton Festival. I was transfixed by three of the soloists: Pilate, Peter, and Jesus of course. The quiet but majestic words of Jesus at his arrest, trial and crucifixion were delivered with such dignity.
The person playing Pilate had brilliantly expressive facial expressions as he stood between the obviously impassive Jesus and the restive crowd. It was Peter’s responses to the accusations that he was a follower of Jesue that made me think of the possible connections with Ipswich Town’s prospects next season.
Readers of the Gospels will recall that Peter’s denials that concluded with bitter tears were not the end of the story. In John’s Gospel he meets Jesus on the beach, where Jesus asks him three times whether he loves him. It is a remarkable act of the restoration of his relationship with and mission to serve Jesus.
In Mark’s Gospel Peter is the first and last disciple to be named. After the resurrection the woman at the tomb are given a striking message for the disciples:
“Go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”’ (Mark 16:7)
Peter, who is the only disciple mentioned by name, is instructed to return to the place where he first started to follow Jesus and, in the words of T.S. Eliot, ‘know the place for the first time’.
Preachers need to know how to encourage those who have fallen that there is always room to begin again. Maybe that is a message you need now?
Photo by Chaos Soccer Gear on Unsplash