Good Friday is more important than football

When it comes to professional football on Good Friday, Norwich City, along with many English teams, played matches, in contrast to many other European countries, says UEA German football researcher and journalist Ben McFadyean.

Today (April 14) is Good Friday in the Julian calendar, and last Friday for other Christian traditions - the day when the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is historically recorded to have happened in Jerusalem, around 2000 years ago. 
 
For Christians Good Friday is the great day of remembrance, a day of prayer and mourning for Christians worldwide remembering the ultimate sacrifice paid by Jesus for the sins of mankind on the cross at the hands of the Romans. A price paid for teaching a message of forgiveness and especially love of those most humbled by life - the poor and the meek. Christ's message is a message of true life and hope. A message most needed in a holy land of that time of conflict, of unrest and of retribution, ruled by a brutal and violent Roman occupying force and one that is still needed today, perhaps more than ever in fact. 
 
Since the 1960s the practice of Christianity has gradually declined in Western societies, whilst new ideas of faith, especially from the East like Buddhism have come in its wake bringing new ways of life and new practices. 
 
In the wake of the marginalisation, withdrawal even, of Christian faith practices, especially in public life, society has been left much the poorer, devoid of many codes of practice, faith practice and even ethically challenged. 
 
Whilst in developing world countries, Christianity has continued to grow, in the Western World, the culture of an 'eye for an eye' has gradually but steadily returned in the wake of the practice of forgiveness which is so central to Christianity. 
 
A late convert to Christianity myself, I only joined the church at the age of 30, like many young people I found other outlets for my interests. In my case sport took my interest and has been a life-long passion.  I started playing football at perhaps 5 or 6, living in Spain, football was the all-encompassing way of life growing up in the 80s and for many still is. I found in team sport a camaraderie and a sense of team which filled the void which was left by the divorce of my parents at the time. When we moved to Spain, I spoke only little of the language but in football I could be at the heart of the community, goals on the field know no boundaries, they are universally loved. 
 
With the exception of my years at university and the first discovery of the female form, football has been a consistent companion during most of my life, as a player, a referee, for a short time as a volunteer in Africa as a coach, an organiser and now professionally as a journalist and an academic researcher. Alongside my faith, the round ball has been my steady companion and the focus of my passions and brought me, more often than not, great joy and inspiration. 
 
A match day is a day when I would more often than not join large numbers of other enthusiasts in a stadium somewhere across the country, nowadays more often in the press box, but otherwise always a fan, just one who is fortunate enough to have made sport a career. 
 
On Good Friday, Norwich City played Blackburn Rovers. With 6 matches to go, in the vital run in for the play offs to the Premier League this game was a must see for me, not least because of my friendship with many of the former players and the German coach, also a Christian, David Wagner. 
 
But I neither followed the game nor any other for that matter. For all Christians Good Friday is the culmination of the Lenten period, the day we remember the crucifixion, the ultimate sacrifice of the prophet and the teacher, the one who personified the absolute victory of love over hate on the cross, a day of fasting, reflection and prayer, not a celebration, not even of sport.  
 
With Orthodox Good Friday today in mind, my research confirms that the solemnity of the day is reflected across the majority of countries where that form of Christianity is practiced, there are no matches scheduled in the elite leagues of either Greece, Russia, Serbia, Cyprus, Georgia, and only two in Romania.  
 
The same applied the previous Friday in Germany and France with only two games in Italy and one game in Spain. In contrast in the UK, a country where, according to the 2022 census, 35% of the population are Christian, beneath the Premier League, there was an entire calendar of fixtures across the entire football pyramid of twelve leagues, for me as a practicing Catholic, even as a keen follower of football, incomprehensible. 
 
The English FA's approach appears to be an almost complete lack of a 'nod' of recognition of the solemnity of the day Good Friday not only of Christian fans, but also Christian coaches like Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp, the best man at his wedding David Wagner of Norwich City or players like Crystal Palace defender Joel Ward, Fulham's winger Willian or the goalkeeper of Liverpool Alisson.
 
Since my conversion to becoming a Catholic, my own life is so rich with the balance of my faith and its practice and the football, my work. I recognise the value that is derived from so many for our favourite sport. But for my own part, much like Christmas Day is respected, even if just as a day for the family, in the future I would really like to see the football authorities, in particular in England, respect the need to keep Good Friday and ideally Easter Sunday too, as is the case in the many leagues outside of England, as a day of commemoration, a day free of major sports fixtures. 

Click here to sign a petition if you support Ben's view.

Pictured above is Ben McFadyean with Norwich City manager David Wagner. Picture (c) Ben McFadyean

Ben McFadyean is a football journalist, editor of the Dortmund Fan Club London podcast and a PhD researcher in German football at UEA in Norwich.