The True Cross: Faith and the Aston Villa Fan

The True Cross: Faith and the Aston Villa Fan

Here’s a quick trip around the philosophical block - do you agree with Voltaire’s conceit that if God did not exist, mankind would have invent him? That we need a higher power to stop us realising our actions are ultimately futile? In a vast nothingness across time and space, we cling to the notion we’re not just a happy accident of proteins and dreck? Well, don’t worry. God does exist, because he played for Villa between 1989 and 1995 before moving to Derby County.

Firmly pulling the shutters down on Pete and Bernie’s Philosophical Steakhouse (if you get that reference, we should meet up for a drink), I’ve been thinking about the similarity between being a fan and being religious. Religion is a strange thing to me, being a committed atheist. As an observer, seeing the twists and sacrifices that are made in the name of faith makes me wince. Getting up early on a Sunday, chanting stuff, talking to others who are also committed to this unknowable future...

Dear McGrath, I’m one of them!

Don’t think I have an axe to grind with any religion. I’m having a little poke at myself here for being a hypocrite. All I’ve done, in my realisation that organised religion is not for me, is to swap a faith that I grew up in for one that I’ve grown into. Fandom is as solemn and rabid as any major faith, but as it’s ostensibly attached to the entertainment industry, it’s seen as something you can just drop at will. But being imbued into any faith isn’t as simple as picking and choosing. In reality, there’s no such thing as ‘the call’. But what there is is a lifetime of dogma and ritual that every true fan has to take on board. Once you have, it’s very difficult to back away from it.

The more you think about it, the harder the comparison sticks. Every club has its place of worship, the ground, which can come in many styles but never looks as perfect as the one you use. The congregation stands when it should stand, is silent when necessary, and knows all the hymns without opening a songbook. Every club issues a newsletter, or programme, which lets you know of the tedious minutiae attached to the parish.

But the real nitty-gritty is faith, and that’s where the comparison comes into its own.

You may not believe it, but there’s absolutely nothing you do on a Saturday afternoon which makes the team perform better. All you can do is stand, and watch, and hope for some random munificence from somebody up there. The future for your football club is as unknowable as whether there’s really an afterlife, and there’s no way of looking back and claiming we saw the outcome in advance. In the case of Aston Villa, when Randy Lerner bought the club in 2006, who saw the chaos of 2010 onwards? Will Libor Kozak make up for Christian Benteke going? And where will the Belgian end up, Madrid or Middlesbrough?

Again, please don’t think I take the issue of religion lightly because I think I’m right. If I’m wrong, I’m really going to regret it. But I’ve been thinking about why I can accept the in-built craziness of being a devoted Aston Villa supporter when I can’t stand the notion of any kind of deity. Sure, there are times that I’ve stood on the Holte and privately prayed for intervention while also wondering why I was here. Bradford last January springs instantly to mind.

Being aware that my consuming love for the club is unhealthy and opposed to my logical nature, why can I so easily convince myself that Aston Villa has a bright future and that I’ll be there to see it? It can’t be because of past achievements, because there must be dwindling numbers of ancient Bury or Preston fans that have spent their entire lives thinking the same.

The short answer is that I don’t, and it brings me back to Mr Voltaire, who knew as well as anybody that we will never truly live our lives without some sort of faith in the future. See, what that statement suggests to me is that mankind will always follow some sort of unknowable answer, even if they argue nothing exists to give it proof. Human beings are largely empirical animals, whereby they make future decisions based on past conclusions. But just because we won a big cup thirty-odd years ago, it doesn’t follow we’ll ever win another. All that I can offer is a vague agreement in a Second Coming – one reason I keep following is because I don’t want to miss the return of the glory days.

I’m a little less fervent in my faith these days, based largely on getting a bit older and having other things to compete for my time and emotions. But I’ll never be wholly detached from my club, because faith is an unconscious reflex, and I’m not strong enough to deny it. So I’ll keep making those pilgrimages, and buying the relics (my retro shirt collection is coming on apace), and watching for doctrinal discussion. I’ll keep pretending to be open-minded about opposition fans’ opinions about Villa, even though it’s obvious they’re clueless idiots.

But it would be careless in the extreme to finish a piece about religion and Villa without mentioning the obvious, which is that the club has religion running through its DNA. Formed by a group of young chaps from St Wesleyans’ Chapel School, they must have been sure there was an all-powerful being watching over their meeting that night under the lamppost. And the club, eventually settling in the shadow of the spire from Aston Parish Church, flourished into one of the most successful clubs in history. You can make your mind up whether that’s coincidence, or blasphemy.

What I am sure of, though, is that we’re all the same, us Villa fans. We may question the path the club treads, but that doubt only makes us stronger. We wonder why others haven’t yet seen the light, and worry for their salvation. But above all, we are righteous, and even if being a fan is genuinely distinct from being a true believer, it will take more than a few shaky results to stop us worshipping Aston Villa in the way we do.

Chris Stanley