Hail our hallowed sporting heroes
As I watched the America’s Cup ticker- tape parade down Queen Street on television the other week, the shiny trophy held aloft, people thronging the footpaths cheering and waving flags, an image of something similar but different flashed momentarily into my mind.
It was a picture of parades in predominantly Roman Catholic countries where the image of the Virgin Mary is carried aloft in processions down narrow medieval cobbled streets, past adoring believers, their souls on fire, devout blood quickening in their veins.
Sport, of course, is the unofficial religion in this country.
And as I read the All Blacks-Lions after-match commentary in the Waikato Times, as sports writer Mark Reason delicately unpicked the various complex and nuanced machinations and technicalities surrounding the ‘‘case of the missing penalty’’, with ‘‘optical illusions’’ thrown into the mix, I thought it sounded like some wily theologian wrestling with the conundrum of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Sport is the unofficial folk religion in this country. We know the names of all the revered saints, from Saint Peter Burling to Saint Richie McCaw and on infinitum. Like religion, in sport there can be dark nights of the soul – Rugby World Cup losses and America’s Cup defeats.
But to the true believer, those who have not lost the faith, there can also come heavenly rewards, resurrections from the dead and the return of various holy grails that bring deliverance and salvation to the nation.
Redemption was a word I heard one of the faithful pronounce to describe the return of the baroque and bloated auld mug as it was raised to the heavens by New Zealand’s yachting finest. Praise the Lord.
As the power of religion declined in the 20th century, its place for many was taken over by sport. The new church became the stadium, bright, shiny and fully lit, with hymns like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot sung from the terraces, at least in Britain. A brief peek inside the All Blacks’ dressing room just before the final test match against the Lions showed the team in a group huddle, heads bent as if in prayer.
It was an image that would not have been out of place in some steamy evangelical tent gathering.
Donations of $450 and up for the big games didn’t deter the flock, which saw, by all accounts, the pews full for every service. It would make many pastors and priests weep.
What made others weep was the sight of Sonny Bill Williams red-carded in the second test for dangerous play. The ‘‘sin bin’’ is aptly named for a system that mirrors so closely religious affiliation. Obviously William’s Muslim faith was not sufficient on this occasion to prevent the perpetration of such an iniquity.
Gnashing of teeth and soul-searching can follow even a drawn match here, it seems, with the pope of rugby, Steve Hansen, declaring from the pulpit that the Lions result had been a ‘‘wake-up call’’. Onward, Christian soldiers.
Contrary to that, I thought the result was the perfect ending to the series, with everyone going home with some pride, unless one happened to be a fixated and fanatical believer. God may not have defended New Zealand to the exacting specifications of the zealots amongst us, but equal spoils to the black and red shirts seemed to me to be a fitting finale on a park called Eden.
However, religions are well known for their sectarian violence and we saw a shadow of that with the undignified sniping that went on during the tour, directed particularly at Lions coach Warren Gatland. The abuse he received via Facebook trolls is the sort of thing one associates with the darker side of religious belief.
But it’s back to Super Rugby now. The Chiefs will have rested the ABs Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane and Anton LienertBrown because of all the heavy lifting they did during the tests. A well-earned rest for bruised and weary bones. Time to replenish the body and soul, but not, as we all recently discovered, on gluten-free wafers. Such biscuits, it has been revealed, are verboten when it comes to holy communion, apparently, according to Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
Why, I hear you ask? Well, because only bread made from wheat and water will do the trick of transubstantiation – the magic that takes place when the bread is transformed, abracadabra, into the blood and body of Jesus. Whew! God must be working on reduced power at the moment.
Maybe it’s just as well the Chiefs’ holy communion is the best Waikato Draught and a thick Oxford meat pie, otherwise Brodie and Sam, if they happen to be coeliac and Catholic, might rupture something in the small bowel going down into the scrum.
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