Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:15 — 4.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | Youtube Music | RSS | More
This week, Damon and Damian look at why football is the world’s most popular sport footballing cliche.
Try out our worksheets or online quiz to help you practice your listening and vocabulary skills. If you click on the audio when it is playing on an iPod you can see the transcript as you listen. Ita€™s a great way to practice listening and fluency!
Transcript
Why is football the worlda€™s game? Why is it followed with so much passion?
With football all too often being in the headlines for the wrong reasons in the past twenty or thirty years, it is easy to forget that this sport is followed by more people than any other on the planet. Forget hooliganism, pampered players, diving – or simulation if you like, money destroying the soul of the game. Football was, is and will be a€˜the beautiful gamea€™.
Perhaps ita€™s the unique combination of team spirit and free expression. For team spirit here is one of the greatest managers in the English game, Bill Shankley – “Train the right way. Help each other. It’s a form of socialism without the Politics.” The sport has always been linked to the a€˜peoplea€™ or perhaps more accurately, the working people. After all, what do you need to play? Some jumpers for goal posts, a ball, some space or a wall, and a mate. Think about cricket, rugby, American football, baseball and you need equipment, a team, a special place to play.
Football has it all. Politics, philosophy, religion …
Politics. Football is war without the shooting. So said George Orwell, the British journalist, writer and political thinker, who was born in India in 1903. Well, yes and no. In 1969 war did break out over football between Honduras and El Salvador. Two world cup qualifiers, a suicide by an El Salvadorian at her teama€™s loss, nationalism, and politics mixed to result in a shooting war that left more than 4,000 dead in the two countries. While passions can be raised, resulting in conflict, football also has the power to reach out across politics and differences of the day and even across the battlefield. 1914, Christmas saw a truce between some German and English soldiers and a game of football in no-mana€™s land. Every man knew the rules, every man knew the spirit behind the game, every man was united by the game. More recently in the Ivory Coast the controversial president Lauren Gbagbo has promised to work for peace in the country after the national football team told him they wanted their success on the pitch to help unite the country and bring peace. No one can ignore the power of a successful national team.
Philosophy. Football isna€™t a sport ita€™s a philosophical act. Behind every kick of the ball lies a thought argues the scorer of perhaps the greatest goal in a world cup, the Dutch striker – Denis Bergkamp – what a fantastic goal it was, too: three sublime touches: first the control plucking the ball out of the air, then beating the man with a sharp change of direction, and a stinging outside-of-the-foot volley into the net. A moment of beauty. Football is the ballet of the masses just as Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, born in 1906 said. But more philosophical weight is added in support of the importance of football by Camus, born in Algeria in 1913, and a skilled goalkeeper. The writer and philosopher argued that he learnt about duty and the morality of man through football. And how can we argue? Football is a team game that relies on the responsibility and choices the individual in that team makes.
Religion. Sometimes religion spills over over into football, think about the Glasgow derby between Rangers and Celtic and the hundreds of years of religious hatred as a backdrop. But more often than not it is football that is the religion. It is the opium of the masses. Jock Stein, the coach of Celtic and of his country, born in 1922 in Scotland, reminds us that football is nothing without the fans. And these fans turn up week in week out to watch their team, know ecstasy and agony through victory and defeat, and gain a sense of solidarity as a member of the a€˜tribea€™ boasting about their heroes. The game connects people across the generations, it gives them a focus, something to look forward to, it teaches humility after a stinging defeat, and there is the opportunity for the collective joyous singing or chanting from the terraces. Everyone believes in their gods on the pitch. Players such as Maradonna, the Argentinian magician born in Buenos Aires in 1960 know that football is more than a game. “God makes me play well. That is why I always make the sign of the cross when I walk out onto the field. I feel I would be betraying Him if I didn’t.” He was of course rewarded for his devotion to God when the divinity inspired him as he destroyed England in the 1982 World Cup while also simultaneously restoring some pride for an Argentinean nation defeated in war by the British.
Football is the worlda€™s game. As Anthony Burgess, the British writer and critic, born in 1917 said:
Five days are for work as the bible says, the seventh day is a holy day to remember God, and the sixth day is for football.
