I think the problem is, it’s more than a game of football.
Shankly’s much misunderstood remark about football being more important than a matter of life and death should probably be understood in the light of the sociology that Desmond Morris described in his book ‘The Soccer Tribe’. The traditional football supporter, like any tribesman, needs a totem, something powerful and greater than himself that can lift his eyes above his less than ideal reality.Life and death matters are with us every day, especially nowadays. We need some thing to inspire and lift us above not only these awful realities but all the other aspects of the daily grind.
In some ways football replaced religion in the modern age. When our team performs well we all walk taller, feel better about out lives and relationships, see the sunshine in life rather than the rain. Wednesday’s successes in the past have lifted Sheffielders who had been dragged down by poverty, wars, deindustrialisation and many other hardships.
In recent times we’ve still had many hardships but we haven’t really had Wednesday, or at least not for long and not at the level where old folk like me still feel The Owls belong.
And that means more than a game of football. It means we’ve had something important taken away from us. Bereft, somebody said on the Owlstalk site. It was the right word to use.
