July 10, 2018

The first pub I went into was a pub full of stereotypical loutish drunken hatefilled England fans. The second pub was filled with who I consider to be true fans – and what I saw taught me some things. 

Two things stood out for me in the first. Firstly, none of the players were allowed to make a mistake, the level of vile outrage at a player who missed two goal attempts took me surprise. (Many) people shouting things like “You fucking cunt, I fucking hate you!!!!” when Stirling missed two clear goal attempts (because of course they could play the game, and score perfectly soooooo much more easily).

Secondly there was no support for the players. Only when the players were close to scoring would we get a “come on!” but other than that, I didn’t hear anything positive. It’s like they didn’t have the vocabulary to say anything good. 

So I ran out at half-time, a bit depressed at seeing all of this – wondering if friends and colleagues who said that this is why they hate football were right. But all I could think was “that can’t be how it is because all my friends who are fans are wonderful beautiful human beings!” 

So I got in my car, drove around a bit, wondered about parking up to watch the second half on my phone, but then I drove past a different pub, one that seemed full of happiness, so I thought I’d chance it. 

I could hear the pub cheering the second goal I just missed seeing as I went running in. The bouncer greeted me with a massive smile cheering “we’ve just scored our second goal!!!!!” as my welcome. 

And I walked in to see a sea of faces. Calmer faces, kinder faces, happier faces, free from anger and rage, and in the midst of it all, a woman in her 10 year old son’s Swedish football top, with everyone being lovely to her when she was cheering the Swedish players. It was a lovely crowd. Full of people like me and my friends. It was a wonderful atmosphere.

The fans were understanding about mistakes, could understand that what they players are having to do must be hard, and continued to encourage the players, could see the bigger picture of how winning a game is a journey of high and lows and successes and failures, and all are OK in the bigger scheme of things. I heard one man telling a friend that, whatever happens, we have a team to be proud of, a Manager to be proud of, and I realised something. 

The football fans I saw in the first pub – those stereotypical angry aggressive England fans that put ordinary people off getting behind our country’s sporting team, and experiencing the incredible joy of seeing us doing so well – they don’t behave like fans. They behave like fundamentalists. 

Fundamentalists follow a dogma or a belief in a way that creates no room for possibilities that anything else could be true, often, with a vehement rage that sometimes spills out into anger and hatred. They will stop at nothing to shout down any other consideration, people who aren’t like them, they hate others who don’t do or think the same as them. 

Fans care deeply about the people they support doing well, and recognise that others have to get there using their own strengths, which may be different to how they would play. Fans celebrate difference. They are open to discussion. They are willing to consider a range of opinions and perspectives and talk about them with others respectfully. Fans are supportive of players who struggle, because – to be honest – who doesn’t sometimes? Even the best of us do. I’d like to see most of the rest of us play at that level with the pressure millions if not billions of people watching around the world, with the hopes and dreams of the people of their country on their shoulders. 

Fans take the attitude of “I’m here for you. What do you need to be the best you can be to shine?”. 

Those were the people I saw in the second pub. People like my friends, people like me, maybe people like you – and I think like most of us in the UK. 

One of my favourite moments of the day was getting a text from a dear friend of mine who was at Pride who said that, when the whistle blew at full time, the crowds went totally and utterly wild and in her text she was laughing and laughing and laughing. I can only image how incredible that moment in that amazing celebratory crowd was. 

Another fave of mine is that Adam Beckett at the Synod of Bishops posted this photo on Twitter saying "Can confirm the Bishops of Birmingham, Guildford, Carlisle, Bath and Wells, Southampton, and the Moderator of the Church of Pakistan all here for the second half. There are probably others I've missed."

According to an article on the BBC website, the Bishop of Willesden was heard to shout out "Close him down!"

What I saw in the second pub (and the third one where I watched the Croatia / Russia match) and all the people at Pride and all my lovely friends who are watching the footie are proof to me that we aren’t a nation of fundamentalists. We are a nation of people who love, that is a beautiful tapestry of diversity, and our culture is changing, We are finding it easier and easier to cheer and see the positive. 

It’s about being there through the highs and the lows, supportive always, understanding it’s a journey, sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes we cruise through, sometimes we fall. Picking each other up and saying “well done for trying mate, it’s OK, we’re behind you.”

Being a fan is about being open to possibilities for new ways, growth, new perspectives. It has in it a quite encouragement of “how can I help you be the best you can be?” 

Being a fan is about love. Sharing and spreading love. 

And it made me think about the world we live in, about being a fundamentalist or being a fan. We don’t just see this in football or religion. 

In politics and business, we see it those who do not have growth and possibilities that benefit everyone and our planet at the heart of what they do, saying it’s impossible to help everyone or to do no harm, who protect their own interests at the expense of others. 

We see it in medicine and science, with the hateful skeptics denying the possibilities (and clear evidence) that can be found with the use of natural medicines, including homeopathy. I have discussed the clear scientific evidence of homeopathy here.

Yet our world is changing. We are reclaiming it, bit by bit, from the fundamentalists. This is what I love the most about Gareth Southgate. He has brought back through football integrity, compassion, kindness, love – and possibility - and is reflecting this new world. 

We see with the #GarethSouthgateWould hashtag, people are celebrating kindness. 

Which brings me back to the fundamentalists. It’s easy for those of us challenged by fundamentalism to hate the haters, but, in the words of wonderful Martin Luther King, hate cannot change hate, only love can do that. 

We aren’t born hating. We learn fear. Only love can change that. So whilst we need to call out fundamentalism, we also need to do it with kindness. 

So what do we do about fundamentalism in all its forms?

The question to those in that space is “what do you need” – a question and approach I am sure #GarethSouthgateWould in his wisdom use. 

My guess the answer is love. That doesn’t mean being all soft in the face of it. Drawing boundaries – clearly and strongly - around what is and isn’t acceptable is also love in action, but having compassion is too. 

#GarethSouthgateWould use compassion. He would ask “what do you need to grow from this point?” He would ask “what can I do to help you get there?

All I can think about is this. 

The author and speaker Joe Vitale talks about how he connected with Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, a psychologist in Hawaii, who had cured a ward of criminally insane people, without ever actually seeing or meeting any of them. His work was such a success that the ward was closed down because it was no longer needed. 

What Dr Len achieved was phenomenal yet his approach simple. He took their case files and locked himself in his room and read each file. And as he read about each patient, he used a technique called Ho’oponopono.

Ho’oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and loving others and yourself. It recognises that the world is a mirror reflection of yourself. 

When we look at other people or the world, and see things we do not like, and we think we are seeing other people’s issues, we are actually seeing our own, reflected back at us. Because we don’t feel comfortable – because we don’t like – these feelings, or behaviours or thoughts in ourselves, we bury them deep inside. Our judgement keeps us from understanding that actually they are a reflection of us – that we have the capability of thinking or feeling the same – that we do feel and think those feelings and thoughts ourselves. 

The psychoanalyst Carl Jung said “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Those fundamentalist football fans we can’t stand? Secretly deep down somewhere within us, is a part of us that is one. Trump? We all have a well hidden infantile part of us that wants to stamp their fist in a room of people saying “DO AS I SAY! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!”. 

Ho’oponopono is a way of transforming the world by owning those parts of us with compassion.

What Dr Len did was as he read his patient’s records, he would say “I’m sorry.” “I love you”. 

What, in effect, he was saying is “I’m sorry you have had to carry a part of me I didn’t wish to see. I love you.”

These words, the words of the practice of Ho’oponopono, have been extended by some, and there are slightly different variations used, depending on whose version you read. The one I use is this:

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you”. 

The “I’m sorry” is an apology that this person has carried something you feel until you were ready to accept it, the “please forgive me” is a “for it taking me so long to see it”, and the expression of gratitude and love bring profound peace.

So that is what I will now do with the fundamentalists. Taking a kind, compassionate, thoughtful approach is what #GarethSouthgateWould do. This is my way of doing it. 

I am loving this journey with football and all it is reflecting back to me. 

And I am loving that It’s Coming Home.

© Danica Apolline 2018