While the Euros <em>again</em> ended in sadness for the English team, its followers and for England itself, my attendance of the tournament in Germany left me with great spiritual hope as well as fulfilment.
For I witnessed how a collective anticipation built on football, patriotism and faith can create a camaraderie both unrelated to an individual team’s performance and one which transcends all borders.
Looking back on that giddy time, I realise that I was not just a fan. I was a footie pilgrim on a journey, full of many of the lessons usually involved in a more traditional pilgrimage like the Camino de Santiago or Via di Francesco to Assisi.
<strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pilgrimage-standoff-assisi-or-santiago-de-compostela-its-a-tough-call/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Pilgrimage Standoff: Assisi or Santiago de Compostela – it’s a tough call</mark></a></strong><br><br>My first formative "holy site" on this footie pilgrimage began in the heart of the Rhine at the city of Gelsenkirchen – appropriately enough given the name translates as “the churches of Gelsen” – for the Italy-Spain match.
Gelsenkirchen was the most important coalmining town in Europe at one point, called the “city of a thousand fires” for the flames of mine gases glaring at night across the spectral darkness.
I was told the city serves as a German equivalent of Leeds – a northern, somewhat “rough-edged” city with a big heart. It’s romantic sounding description of night-searing illumination, however, also serves as a salutatory reminder of the blazes that razed two-thirds of the city in the aftermath of the Allies’ bombing campaigns. And yet, based on the platform provided by the football, the Germans could not have been more welcoming to us.
I had hoped to attend a 5 p.m. Mass before the game to pray for the Land of Cervantes, my allegiance having been decided that way. But having failed to fully differentiate between my S-Bahns and my U-Bahns on the German rail network, I ended up arriving 30 minutes late to St. Urbanus' Church. Infused with the habits of the supporters of my adopted team, my mind took the delay as an omen as I fell into a doomed superstition about the match's fate.
But my morale soon picked up during the approach to the church, the thoroughfare becoming one of increasing tinnitus-causing clamour, with a mass of yellow and red as Spanish fans held a great rally outside the church to accompany the Mass.
Local artists performed <em>Despacito</em> on a stage shadowed by the clock tower, Madri beer flowed on tap by the entrance steps to the church, and <em>ándales</em> were being <em>ándaled</em> all around.
This banquet of sports devotion dispelled any hope for a quiet prayer. The air was thick with anticipation, hope and the belief that a collective faith could influence the match's outcome.
In retrospect, this might appear a case of too much kumbaya-fication of the Faith. I wouldn't agree; what happened outside the church in Gelsenkirchen did not in any way undermine the mystical body of Christ that I and so many of those bull lovers were experiencing in that moment.
Spiritual renewal, remembering our heritage and keeping the faith abroad – all was bolstered by the simple unconscious fact of those fans projecting their spiritual and metaphysical yearnings in partnership with their love of the game.
Walking past the solemnity of the armed guards at the entrance to the church – ever a somber reminder of where we have got to in the modern world – I was then met with two pillars of the universal Church's administrative wing: two grey-haired Rhinemaidens who manned the interior entrance.
They directed me to a hammer along with the instruction to join the Euro-pilgrims that had come before me and forge a nail into Nottingham, my home city, on a world map.<br><br>My next task was to hang up a prayer card in a goal net adjacent to the front pews: our hopes offered up towards the Altar in the manner of those Vatican II ideals to make the Faith more open and flexible.
Can devotional fans become devout parishioners this way? Can making your mark on the church furniture work when it comes to that famed phrase of modernity of creating stakeholder inclusivity?
I am not sure I have the answer yet. And I won't claim to not have my own doubts about the possibility either, hence I asked the staff whether the ruckus outside the church was intentional. It turned out that, yes, it was.
In fact, the following week they welcomed Portuguese fans. And based on what I saw during the Spain-Italy game, I am sure the congregation that second time would've shared in the joy over Spain's ultimate triumph. Because this shared experience, this communal celebration, bound everyone together.
In this way, a sports pilgrimage is not simply some semantic satiation to make you feel good, nor an activity outside of godliness; it's a home away from home enhanced by an exchange of locally enriched devotions, twinned with innovative interactions occurring in temporal events (in this case a tournament).
Celebrating Spain's success has also been about celebrating the return to sporting excellence, including with a touch of magic if not an underlying faith in the mysterious and unknowable: the story of a 17-year-old boy prodigy defying all on the world stage, fast-paced dynamic and creative football, all contributing to beating talent deemed superior.
But beyond the great spectacle of the number of goals that Spain secured, witnessing how the Spanish fans combined their faith with the flag and with the ball helped fulfil the spiritual needs of my journey and footie pilgrimage.
To be a Catholic is to be a sportsman in many ways: you are constantly up against an agile opposition; take your eye off the ball and you can become a cropper. Arriving back to Nottingham, I couldn't help wonder why our Anglican counterparts can't harness the same dynamic.
The fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury's sole interest in the Euros tournament seemed to only come with the final – and him releasing a video with the Archbishop of York to cheer on the English squad – rather than attending the complete journey, likely gets to the heart of the problem around all those empty pews in Anglican churches.
Gelsenkirchen served as a reminder that amidst the vitality of sport, there exists at the same time a haven of peace and spiritual solace if we embrace it.
What was the main lesson from my experience as a footie pilgrim? Find faith wherever you can. Walk into it and then <em>be</em> in it. That way you will have great fun and also find rest and nourishment for your soul.
<em>Photo: Fans of Spain celebrate after their team's victory in the UEFA EURO 2024 group stage match between Spain and Italy at Arena AufSchalke, Gelsenkirchen, Germany, 20 June 2024.(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.)</em>
