Cheer on England With Us!
The men’s football World Cup is just a month away and we’re going to be showing all England’s games on the big screen in church. We offer a warm and inclusive space, less crowded than your local pub and hopefully with better language! You can bring your own drinks and snacks and mingle with other local people in the warm heart of Mount Hermon. We would like to invite as many local people as possible. There will be paper invitations available in the next couple of weeks, along with social media posts you can share, and we’ll be contacting our local schools to put it in their bulletins. Details of England’s games are below.
At the last World Cup in 2018, we showed England’s games, and, by the time they lost in the semi-final, we had quite a mixed crowd coming along: young and old, church regulars and locals. It’s lovely to have such a large, safe space to share. Our church values include being kind and hospitable, so this is a set of events that we can all get behind.
This year’s World Cup has been controversial from the time it was awarded to its host nation Qatar. The whiff of corruption has long hung around international football. How does it make sense to have such a major tournament in a country where it is always too hot to play outside without air-conditioned stadia? Added to this, an estimated 6,500 migrant workers died constructing the sites. It cannot be right that a tournament which is supposed to bring people together comes at such a huge human cost, before you even start measuring the environmental cost of building and using the facilities. We pray for a new approach to the World Cup, one which puts transparency, integrity and concern for its local impact and legacy at its heart.
Now we have the opportunity to get behind two home nations, England and Wales, as they begin their campaigns. We can simultaneously hold the footballing authorities to account for their failings and support our teams with enthusiasm and passion. Here is an opportunity for people to come together in our neighbourhood, to get to know each other and have fun watching the games. I regularly quote the figure that people who have been into a church once for any reason are 80% more likely to visit again. Coming in the run-up to Christmas, we have many excellent opportunities to invite people straight back for a service, not least on Sunday 18 December, when the World Cup Final is at 3pm and our outdoor Carols in the Community is at 7pm. Let’s hope we can cheer England all the way to the top, and go straight into our car park for the service!
England’s group matches
1pm Monday 21 November England v Iran
7pm Friday 25 November England v USA
7pm Tuesday 29 November England v Wales
If England win their group, their matches in the knockout stage will be:
7pm Sunday 4 December
7pm Saturday 10 December
7pm Wednesday 14 December
3pm Sunday 18 December
If England are runners-up in their group, their matches in the knockout stage will be:
3pm Saturday 3 December
7pm Friday 9 December
7pm Tuesday 13 December
3pm Sunday 18 December
