The End of One Season and the Beginning of Another

The football season is coming to an end... Wednesday saw the two English teams I hate most competing for a cup in the middle of the night in Moscow... and I am afraid I found myself supporting Scum Utd... I felt dirty after it... But better them than Chelski buying the cup.

Then tonight saw Rangers lose to Aberdeen and thus hand the Scottish Premier league to their arch rivals Celtic... And as I watched it out of the corner of my eye with friends in East Belfast, I breathed a sigh of relief, because I knew that in West Belfast, where my previous charge was, local Protestant and Catholic youths would be using this as an excuse to vent their frustrations on each other, and the interfaces would be littered with bricks, bottles and stones. And sure enough, when I came home and checked the internet, it turned out that there had been an outbreak of violence on at least one Northwest Belfast interface...

And so the football season gives way to the season of recreational rioting...

I thank God that I am not in the midst of it any more... but I also thank God for those who are... And who continue to pay the price of our divided society...

Just as we watch the premiership, the Scottish Premiership and the Champions league on the TV, so we watch the news bulletins about flare-ups on the interfaces, thinking that in both cases we are innocent bystanders... passive spectators...

But just as we fund the football through our TV subscriptions and purchase of football kits for our kids, so we fuel the interface violence, because we, in comfortable, middle class Northern Ireland will not play our part in bridging the divide. We simply spectate, sitting back and letting others play their sectarian games on the streets of the city.

But it's not a game...

Blessings

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