Yid's Army

Football is a game, a game I want to win- or so a friend once told me, it was something along those lines anyway.

Being a game, though, football very rarely has anything to do with race; of course there is the incident involving England at the Bernabeu, or Mario Balotelli at Chievo and the underlying racism that surrounds black managers especially in the English game and many other stories of racism appearing in football but that doesn't make football about race. Football also rarely has anything to do with religion, of course there is the 4 times or more a season that Rangers play Celtic but that would be about it.

Being Jewish I can also, quite honestly, tell you that football rarely has anything to do with Jews. There is the odd famous professional Jewish footballer; Yossi Benayoun, Tal Ben Haim, Eyal Berkovic and Avram Grant to name but a few (yes they all happen to also be Israeli), there is the wonderful MJSL but that's about it for us Jews.... oh and Spurs!


The good old 'Yid Army' ey! Named so because lot's of Jews support them- so that'll be Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal as well then, and that's just for starters.

Oh, suddenly thought of what Jews are known for when it comes to football. It's not heading the ball. We close our eyes and shy away from the ball, we also can't tackle or play in particularly physical matches.

And so last night Sporting JLGB (remember them?) played their first pre-season friendly of the summer, against a non-Jewish team or just a team. This was no charity peace match or any rubbish, this was a competitive friendly between two sides getting ready for the excitement of a Sunday League campaign, and boy was it a match!

The match started with Britain's Protection on the offensive but Sporting's defence stood strong and gave as good as they got, new signing Blake Englander probably giving better. But Sporting, looking awesome in their new pink kits, struggled to get the ball under control in the opposition half and thus it kept coming back at a well organised Sporting defence. The defending was resolute and tough but it was eventually broken, a left foot shot from the edge of the area beating the keeper.

It was 2-0 before half time, another shot from the edge of the area, this time brilliantly saved, would fall inside the 6 yard box for the Protection's number 9 to slot home. At half time Sporting marched off anything but dejected, they were well in this game and playing well, and it got better.

The 2nd half was an even scrappier, more aggressive affair from both sides, and with plenty of subs being made it was now JLGB on top. Rafi Bloom was finding himself in more and more space upfront and was starting to show the kind of form that left defenders fearful of him in his Westdene days. The partnership upfront between Bloom and Uri Steinberg looked strong, and with Englander and Saul Davies forming a rock at the back, Sporting will go into their season with a solid base through the middle of the team.

Unusually in a friendly there was a red card brandished as the ref had enough of the foul and abusive language he was receiving from Protection's centre back. The away side were all getting fed up of the ref as they constantly thought they were wrongly being punished but the man in black didn't seem to be doing too much wrong. With time ticking away it seemed that Sporting would not get the goal that they deserved, until, with 10 minutes to go, Bloom got the ball just outside the area, danced his way past two defenders and into the 'box' only to be brought down, he brushed himself off and buried the ball in the top corner from the penalty spot.

The ref blew for full time and everyone had enjoyed the run out, from both sides. Hands were shook and pleasantries swapped as the two sides had taken part in a highly competitive match that had ended with a very fair scoreline, a real reflection of the match.

Religion very rarely comes into football, and as Sporting JLGB and Britain's Protection walked off the pitch, it still didn't.


P.S- Apparently Spurs got into the group stages of the Champions League tonight and I fooled you all into thinking that's what this post was about, oh well!