Life Lessons from Football: A Weekend in Liverpool

This past weekend, armed with a bag of carrots and a pack of crumpets, I boarded a train at the leisurely hour of 6:32 am. 4 hours later, after a scenic journey through the Lake District (and after a wee nap), I arrived in Liverpool to meet up with Quyen, a friend from America.

Liverpool boasts a dynamic waterfront, Albert Dock. I enjoyed wandering through all the museums and lil’ shops and cafes, learning about the city’s connection with the Titanic, seeing seagulls fly over the sea, and consuming a ginormous crepe-topped-with-2-scoops-of-ice-cream.

Liverpudlians (as the locals are dubbed!) also proudly showcase a dynamic musical history as the home of the Beatles.

 

3 interesting facts I learned:

1)    Did you ever watch the “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” show on TV? Turns out Ringo Starr narrated some episodes! #mindblown.

2)    The band first started out at a local club called The Cavern!

3)    As the Vietnam War stormed onwards, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono conducted 2 week-long “Bed-Ins for Peace” (in Amsterdam and in Montreal) to advocate for peace.

Liverpudlians also proudly showcase their football pride. The city bears a long-standing friendly rivalry between its 2 premier football clubs, Liverpool FC and Everton. “You’re either red or you’re blue!” Despite the competitiveness between the two, both teams came together to support their city after the “Hillsborough disaster”: on April 15, 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, during the FA Cup semifinal match between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest FC, 96 people died and 766 people were injured due to a mad rush/overcrowding crush. The teams set aside their differences and came together in support of one another. 

Football has been known to unite countries and peoples of all backgrounds. (Tis true, from watching the World Cup to playing FIFA on the Xbox, football has forged a stronger bond between me and my brothers.) Other sports, like rugby, have been known to stitch back together wounds of a land (just look at South Africa and the 1995 Rugby Cup, the first major sporting event in South Africa after the end of apartheid #Invictus #Mandela).

We won’t achieve world peace through football alone, or through music alone, or through our hands alone. This world is broken, and we are a broken people. But when moments like that of reconciliation remind me of the God who came down from heaven to live among us on earth, the God who offers true peace, a peace that lasts forever.