“What is a football club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.” Sir Bobby Robson
These words of Sir Bobby Robson were autobiographical in that he himself grew up in a small mining town in the North East of England and, as a young boy led by his father, fell in love with Newcastle United Football Club. After a successful playing career, Robson went on to manage various major European football clubs, the England national team and finally his beloved Newcastle United.
Not all Geordies grow up to manage their local team, but many fall in love with it. Sir Bobby speaks autobiographically for many of us who have clambered up the steps of St James’ Park with loved ones and welcomed Newcastle United into their lives as part of the family.
This was my own childhood and teenage experience in the 1990s and 2000s, attending matches with my Dad and my school friends and feeling the club becoming part of my identity, part of what it meant to be from the North East of England. The club reflected the values of the region and the region reflected the values of the club: family, community, tradition, pride in our local history and identity, hard work, humility, humour, intensity, passion, loyalty, joy, faith, hope and love. I, and supporters like me, learnt these virtues in our homes and our workplaces, but we also learnt them together on the terraces of St James’ Park on Saturday afternoons.
On Sunday 16th March 2025, the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging and the pride in our city overflowed at Wembley Stadium – the home of English football – as Newcastle United lifted the English Football League Cup for the first time in the club’s one-hundred-and-thirty-three-year history, beating Liverpool FC by two goals to one. It was the club’s first trophy of any kind since 1969, meaning that, for many supporters, it was the first time in their lives they saw a major cup wearing black and white ribbons, the first time they experienced what it was to be victorious rather than an also-ran. So much had glorious failure become part of the narrative of Newcastle United, my own initial reaction was to stare in disbelief, hands on head, simply muttering: “I never thought I would see the day.”
Fittingly, the opening goal was scored by Newcastle’s Dan Burn, a local lad, whose presence in the team symbolizes the inextricable connection between the football club and the region it represents. And yet, the recent global success of English football is that it carries an appeal that reaches beyond national boundaries. Within moments after the final whistle, I received congratulatory messages from friends not only in England, but also from France, Belgium, Cameroon and South Korea. While the globalization of the game brings with it commercialization that threatens its traditions, such an event is a powerful reminder of football’s power as a universal language that brings people together through the spectrum of emotions we experience, a celebration of our shared humanity.
As a Jesuit in Formation for the priesthood currently studying theology at Boston College, I was blessed to be able to tune-in to the game not feeling isolated from the action by the Atlantic Ocean, but rather surrounded by the warm fraternity of my brother Jesuits in community. Again, an international group, we kicked every ball, the majority cheering on Newcastle as we sought to make history. I often wondered what it would feel like if Newcastle ever won a trophy and – for a man of faith – the surprising answer is that of disbelief! “I never thought I would see the day.”
Earlier that same day, the Second Sunday of Lent, we heard the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). In that scene the disciples get a glimpse of glory and are unsure how to react, unsure that they have understood the significance. The parallels weren’t lost on me and made me reflect that, just as the illumination of Jesus in the Transfiguration is a foretaste the Resurrection of our Lord that enables us disciples to keep the faith and proceed with hope during the travails of Lent, perhaps the joy that football fans seek in their pursuit of trophies is merely a foretaste of the wonder of the life that awaits us beyond our time on earth. Attempting to savour the powerful emotions of Newcastle’s victory through the lens of faith, I certainly got a taste of God’s great sense of humor in Evening Prayer later that night, where the reading we prayed with itself spoke of sport:
“While all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, the award goes to one man. In that case, run so as to win! Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things. They do this to win a crown of leaves that withers, but we a crown that is imperishable.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25)
St Paul’s reminder of the imperishability of heavenly glory versus the fleeting nature of our earthly experiences perhaps offers a corrective to those who place all their hope in the success of a sports team. Yes, our sports teams are rightly important to us, to our families, to our identities. But they, like all of creation, are best understood when they are given their rightful place as pointing towards the glory of God who created all as a pathway for entering more deeply into communion with God and with others, thus participating in God’s glory. Our yearning to share in the glory of God is the true source of our passion for sporting success.
This is my attempt to process the hope and the glory of experiencing Newcastle United’s recent victory: the glimpse of glory tasted in footballing victory merely points towards the fullness of glory of the resurrection in Jesus Christ. This sheds religious light and meaning on another of Sir Bobby Robson’s famous footballing phrases: “It’s not beyond our wildest dreams, because we did have wild dreams.”
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Photo Courtesy of Jorono