From playing fields to battlefields
#11: Footballers on the front line, Ukraine at the Euros, cricket in refugee camps, Sudan's travelling champions, Afghanistan's defiant women, and sporting tragedy in Gaza...
Tales from the fringes of sport and society…
In his 1945 essay The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell described sport as “war minus the shooting”. And as the Euros begin this month, it’s unlikely that a day will go by this summer without someone somewhere casually conflating our favourite leisure activity with humankind's darkest acts.
Attack down the flanks. Take no prisoners. Caught in no man's land. Aerial bombardment. Under siege. Dogfight. Rear guard action. Hold the fort. Rally the troops.
Whether it's written in a match report, barked out in commentary, or uttered in the pub, we're all guilty of spouting the occasional war cliché.
The terminology isn’t distasteful or disrespectful, but it does suggest a blurring of perspective. Occasionally, events arise that realign our focus.
For many in the UK, the 80th anniversary of D-Day last week was one of those moments. I was lucky to be in Normandy just a few weeks ago, visiting the landing beaches that have become synonymous with displays of unprecedented courage and ultimate sacrifice.
Standing on those same grains of sand had a profound effect on me, as I suspect it does on many others who visit (except, it seems, our Prime Minister). Staring up towards the coastal defences, with surviving artillery still pointing towards the beach, you can’t help but wonder what you would have done in that situation when expected to sprint towards the very people shooting at you. Thanks to our formidable grandads and - as you’ll read below - grandmas, we’ll hopefully never find out.
Sadly the same can’t be said in other parts of the world, where new generations have been forced into combat boots. Conflicts in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen continue to kill thousands and uproot millions.
Orwell may have viewed sport as "bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure" but his cynicism overlooked sport’s ability to provide a sanctuary for those involved in real wars, not metaphorical ones. From the Syrian and Palestinian teenagers playing cricket in Lebanese refugee camps, to the Sudanese and Ukrainian football teams playing on foreign fields to offer hope for their desperate people back home.
This month’s Off-Field newsletter features the above stories alongside more examples of where war and sport have overlapped.
As for keeping a sense of perspective in a stonking summer of sport that will see tribal rivalries reignite, it’s worth remembering the tale of Aussie cricketer Keith Miller.
The all-rounder’s 170 wickets and 2,958 runs are made all the more remarkable given that he spent the Second World War flying Mosquito bombers over Germany and occupied France. When asked by renowned interviewer Michael Parkinson how he handled the pressure of playing Test cricket for Australia, Miller’s incredulous response was one for the ages.
"Pressure? There's no pressure in Test cricket. Real pressure is when you are flying a Mosquito with a Messerschmitt up your arse!"
Enjoy the selection.
The Leftouts
This month saw Tamil Eelam defeat Sapmi in the final of CONIFA's Women's World Cup. CONIFA - the Confederation of Independent Football Associations - is a fascinating organisation formed in 2013 to provide a platform for de facto states, regions, minority groups, and sports-isolated territories to play football. In other words, for the football associations that aren’t permitted to play under FIFA’s rigid international structure.
I attended the last CONIFA Men’s World Cup when it was held in London, discovering that not only was the football of a high standard (with former pros and semi-pros making up the bulk of the squads) but also that each team had a fascinating history to tell, from exiled Tibetans to persecuted minorities representing Karpatalya and Szekely Land.
Fighting Footballers
You might remember him as the pub landlord but these days Al Murray is better known for his expertise on all things WW2. Such is the formidable breadth and depth of his podcast with historian James Holland, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, that it now encompasses more than 700 episodes, most recently including a comprehensive ten-part series on D-Day.
Episode 81 features Gary Lineker talking about his grandfather's exploits as a medic during the bloody campaign in Italy. There are also anecdotes about the top footballers who fought for their country, not all of whom made it back home.
Ukraine Euro 2024 guide: A strong squad and La Liga’s top scorer – but the war weighs heavy
The Euros begin today, meaning you’ll have had your fill of stat-crammed previews and tipsters straddling dark horses. But this is not your typical team preview, with The Athletic’s Nick Miller doing a masterful job of balancing the off-field context with the on-field potential ahead of Ukraine’s welcome appearance in Germany.
Manager Sergei Rebrov boasts a talented squad, one that has the ability to go far in the tournament. But Vladimir Putin’s incursion on their homeland has meant that they haven’t been able to play on home soil for two years, meaning their route to qualification was understandably bumpy.
And while the importance of football pales into insignificance when compared with lost lives, battered cities, and broken families, Ukraine’s players know that if a strong performance can provide even the slightest glimmer of hope to those left behind, then it’s something worth doing. They’re sure to be everyone’s second team. Slava Ukrayini!
Maybe more than all of this has been an acknowledgement that Stepanenko, Zinchenko and all of the Ukraine players are not simply footballers anymore, but idols of hope and ambassadors for their country.
“Our job now is not solely to be footballers,” Stepanenko said when he was nominated for a FIFPro Merit award at the end of 2023, “but to help support and protect our people, especially children.”
‘I’ve been robbed of my dreams’: the sporting tragedy of the war in Gaza
The Guardian's Abubaker Abed reports from Gaza on the sporting victims of the continued conflict with Israel. Mohammed Abu-Hujair is a promising 17-year-old footballer who’d been invited for a trial with Real Madrid before the October attacks prevented him from being able to attend. “I yearn for the boy I was before 7th October,” he says.
The article goes on to describe some of the 243 Palestinian athletes killed and the dozens of sports venues bombed beyond recognition. Until peace can be found, sport in Gaza is effectively extinct.
“Our players are being killed, our facilities have been destroyed and our clubs are being attacked,” Nader al-Jayooshi of the Palestinian Olympic Committee in Ramallah told the Guardian.
Al Hilal: Sudanese champions play on 'to distract people from war'
The conflict in Sudan gets little coverage here in the UK, but so far the civil war is responsible for the death of around 14,000 people and the enforced displacement of eight million more. The UN believe the country is on the cusp of the world's worst hunger crisis.
It's no surprise then that the country's domestic football league has been suspended. The Sudanese champions, Al Hilal, have other ideas, however. In August, they'll head south to begin a new season as a member of the Tanzanian top flight. This BBC Sport article by Celestine Karoney explains why.
‘Cricket helped me build my personality’: the refugees finding peace on the crease
In a refugee camp in Lebanon, cricket is helping Syrian and Palestinian teenagers to overcome their trauma. Perhaps because it isn’t widely played in their home countries, the sport is offering a blank canvas on which to paint joy and possibility.
In this excellent piece, Martin Wright of Positive News speaks to some of the refugees enjoying the benefits of Alsama, the NGO set up by a London-based couple to help refugee kids in parts of the world deemed too risky to visit by many other charities.
The Wrens, unsung British heroines of the D-Day landings in Normandy
For obvious reasons, the stories of D-Day - the largest-ever combined airborne and amphibious military operation in history - are brimming with tales of heroic men. But behind the scenes, plenty of amazing women were responsible for its meticulous preparation and success. Such as those from the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as Wrens.
These women were switchboard operators, signallers, coders, writers, electricians, drivers, and mechanics. Over 300 lost their lives during the Second World War, and this translated article from France 24's Stéphanie Trouillard recounts the stories of seven of those unsung heroines.
“I was thrilled to know that at last we had managed to carry out the plans, which had been envisaged for so long by so many brilliant brains. It was the beginning of our campaign to help get back France for the French.”
My Beautiful Sisters, Khalida Popal
“To be a young woman in Afghanistan is to grow up with violence. To learn not to fight back. To fight back is to risk being killed. If you are beaten it’s because you were at fault, you must have done something wrong. There were 20 of us in the yard that day, far more of us than of them, but there was nothing we could do, because we knew the consequences. Our crime? Kicking a ball, playing sport, having fun.”
Released later this month, My Beautiful Sisters tells the inspirational story of Khalida Popal, the founder of the Afghanistan women’s football team. In 2003, with the oppressive Taliban regime removed from power, Popal overcame prevailing societal sneers to set up a women's team. They had to play in silence to avoid attention, and many girls were still forbidden from playing by their fathers. Yet Popal persevered, fighting back against decades of restrictive norms.
Given that the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and immediately barred girls from attending secondary school, this is a book that is likely to be a powerful yet heartbreaking read. You can read an excerpt here, or order the book below.
Thanks for reading June’s edition of Off-Field. If you enjoyed the read, why not share it with a friend who might also enjoy it. The newsletter is, and always will be, free.
If you want to get in touch, give me a shout via alexisnjames@gmail.com.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.