This summer has thrown up a festival of sport to watch and enjoy. Part of the enjoyment flows from someone who represents you winning glory. The question of who represents us, however, has clearly got more complex given recent events.
During Euro 2024, the final between Spain and England was presented in some quarters as a Catholic versus Protestant match. For there are areas of the beautiful game where the Catholic/Protestant-based team allegiance divide is still a thing.
There is a very sharp YouTube skit from a few decades ago where a Rangers football scout brings in a young man, who appears and amazing talent and has scored seven goals in the first half of his last game, to be signed up with a five-year contract for the club. Only as the ink dries do they realise, to their horror, that he is a Catholic.
