‘Football provides unity in grief’

Sometimes it’s easy to be sick of football. Easy to buy into the popular memes and myths about footballers. Easy to think that football is a den of iniquity, a swamp full of rich folk making themselves richer on the backs of us working folk. In light of the ongoing national headlines about sickening criminal behaviour in youth coaching, it’s easier than ever to think negatively about this game of ours.

But every now and then, and often in the worst of times, the game and its people remind you why you bother.

One such instance happened just after three o’clock last Saturday at Chesterfield. After Peter Hartley opened the scoring, the entire Rovers team, including the goalkeeper, ran to manager Darrell Clarke and mobbed him. It turns out, as you probably know by now, that the boss had suffered a family bereavement. Now of course most people would offer support to a friend or colleague given such news, football players are not alone here, but there’s something genuinely touching in that moment. A group of people publicly throwing their arm around one of their own. Not to mention the kind words spoken and written from those across Bristol’s footballing divide; I’ve said on many occasions that rivalry and hatred are two very different things, and while we want to laugh at our neighbours every week, and hope they lose, it’s never personal.

One cannot discuss football this week without speaking of football providing unity in grief. Over 5200 miles away from that scene, in Medellin, Colombia, our sport was rocked by the awful tragedy that claimed the lives of almost everyone involved with Brazilian side Associação Chapecoense de Futebol as they travelled to a cup final. They were a side that most of us would have to admit never having heard of before their aeroplane crashed. But that doesn’t matter. Men in suits, usually with money on the mind, like to speak of the “football family”, usually when welcoming a new sponsor. The true meaning of the “football family” was seen in Manchester, Liverpool, London and Hull, where fans and players, including some who had lost friends, united in impeccable silence to honour and respect their fallen colleagues. Truly awe-inspiring scenes followed both at the homes of Chapecoense and their cup final opponents-to-be, Colombian side Atletico Nacional, both packed to the rafters to pay tribute, in solidarity and friendship.

Few clubs ever suffer such a dreadful fate, thankfully. The nearest that our club has ever been to such grief in recent-ish times are, of course, the untimely deaths of Mickey Barrett, a Rovers legend in the making, and former Exeter and Yeovil forward Adam Stansfield, often an opponent of ours. We were the first visitors to Exeter City after Stansfield’s passing, of course. Those who were involved in the footballing aftermath of either of those sad occasions wouldn’t be in the least surprised by the heartwarming response showed by the game and those in it.

Back to football matters now – a tasty tie at home to Barrow AFC in the FA Cup awaits on Sunday. Yes, Sunday. We’ve been moved by the BBC so we can be included in their FA Cup Final Score coverage. Sound familiar? That’s because they did exactly the same last year for our First Round humbling at the hands of Chesham. If lightning strikes twice at least we made Round Two this time out.

This tie has a bit of recent history – Rovers having dispatched the Bluebirds a decade ago, in a tie that landed a Barrow player in prison for assaulting Sean Rigg. Aside from that ugly episode, the game was hard-fought, Paul Trollope’s promotion heroes-to-be surviving a late attempt at a comeback to win 3-2 at a windswept Holker Street, Barrow’s home ground. And a place we don’t want to be going to for a Tuesday night replay with the advent calendar more than half-empty.

Expect it to be as tough this weekend as it was then; I’ve had a birthday since they last lost in any competition, and I was born in August. Paul Cox, who has form getting sides out of the Conference, has just celebrated a year in charge and his win percentage of 50% in that time shows that he might just do it again.  

Obviously I’ll be happy with any win. Failing that, a narrow defeat maybe? I’m jesting, of course, but losing to Chesham last year gave the team the ammunition to blow the cobwebs off and turn a mediocre season into an unforgettable one. Just don’t make those poor lads take a 500 mile round trip!

That said, the events of the past week have reminded us, if nothing else, that our wonderful game is just that, a game, and if we all come home from it unscathed, then all is well. 

#ForçaChape