How many professional footballers in Scotland today believe in The Incarnation?
Precious few, I believe, is the honest answer. Even at Christmas.
The query was stirred within me when I spotted Morton’s on-loan Christian evangelical, Alex Samuel, belting out a gospel song at that “Carols at Cappielow” event the other week.
Samuel said later he felt it his duty to proclaim his faith, and he felt very comfortable proclaiming Christ in song.
Over the years I’ve had one or two rare moments of theological reflection with principal figures in Scottish football – but I can’t remember too many of them being ardent believers of one form or another.
Bobby Watson, the former Rangers and Motherwell defender, was a lay-preacher in his time.
Bobby famously helped to present a “Songs of Praise” football special in Glasgow in the 1970s, and my weird recollection of it is that he roped in, of all people, Willie Pettigrew to say a reading.
I asked Willie about this bizarre event yesterday. I’m afraid I cannot report his reply here.
Craig Brown, the former Scotland manager, has also led worship in church. I was there one evening when Brown’s ample quoting of Old Testament prophets at Hillhead Baptist Church was something a keen young student of divinity might have been proud of.
Brown once told me that “the Medes and the Persians” was one of his favourite stories from the Scriptures.
One evening I got into conversation with Walter Smith, who told me that his mother had played the organ in church. It seemed obvious to me that, even if the former Rangers manager didn’t regularly buff up his shoes for 11am every Sunday morning, his respect for the Church remained.
But Smith’s nodding acquaintance with The Incarnation was nothing to that of his old friend and foe, Tommy Burns.
Now here is a man who believed in homoousios. There was one point in Tommy’s reign at Celtic as manager when, if you tried to reach him on the phone any lunchtime at Celtic Park, the response would come back: “Tommy’s at the chapel…try again in an hour.”
I know for a fact, too, that ex-Rangers Marvin Andrews believes in The Incarnation. I’ve twice had first-hand experience of this.
First, after that famous Livingston-Celtic SPL match of August, 2001, Big Marv arrived later to tell us that he had prayed to God that Henrik Larsson would miss a penalty for Celtic – which he did – in the 0-0 draw.
I believe this is the only time I have asked a question consistent with Christian hermeneutics in a press conference.
“What would God have done,” I asked Andrews, “if Larsson had simultaneously been praying for his penalty to go in?” The big fellow guffawed with laughter.
Some years later I went to Kirkcaldy on magazine duty to hear Andrews preach to his faithful at the Zion Praise Centre in the town.
What a sight greeted me. Marv was in full flow, the sweat lashing off his brow, as he berated those in front of him and the world outside in god-forsaken Kirkcaldy about their sinful ways. “Turn to God, incarnated in Christ,” was most certainly his message, and at high volume.
In the old days Scottish football clubs would often have a chaplain who visited the stadium and would speak with the players or any other members of staff, on spiritual grounds.
The Rev James (“Jimmy”) Martin was an example of this at Motherwell FC, or the Rev James Curry, of Dunlop, who over the years became the chaplain of Rangers FC.
Occasionally, at such times as this, these church figures would suggest that a club Christmas carol service might be in order.
Some clubs still employ chaplains, though the multi-faith age today in Britain has made it all a bit more complicated. At some football clubs today players are as likely to be preparing for Ramadan as they are for the feasts of Easter or Christmas.
Or, to omit both these scenarios, they will be thorough-going atheists.
My hunch is that few principals in Scottish football today believe in The Incarnation.
In Scottish football the Christian faith – a bit like our crowds and our Uefa co-efficient – has gone down the stank.
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