Football is a microcosm of all human life: the best and the worst, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the triumphs and the sorrows, the successes and the failures, the ecstasy and the agony, the beauty and the ugliness. Love it or loathe it, you can’t escape it. You have to deal with it.
What better vehicle is there to teach our children human character, the value of working as a team, and emotional intelligence for their adult lives? And, in the light of the result, I would add the need to demonstrate graciousness in defeat.
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All of this is very true, John. As it is there’s another great learning point for old and you alike: don’t count your chickens until they’ve hatched! For it is not football that set you all up in a great frenzy and at risk of a massively hard fall; it is media. All of us needs to be aware of how damaging it can be, if we allow ourselves to be taken in by it. Unfortunately, we seem more than ever to live in a society whereby the popular press tells everyone to jump; and they answer, “how high?”