May have mentioned it before, but I’ve been a Wimbledon FC fan for many years. [You have — I’ve had to press ‘Delete’ many times. Ed]
However, have I a Plough Lane experience to come? Like St Paul (admittedly a different road), will I realize I’ve been supportingthewrong team? Should I still be celebrating the fad that Wimbledon was reborn again 12 years ago this month when we fans refused to follow the owners’ decision to move the team to Milton Keynes? Also that, despite having to begin again in football’s basement, the Dons have got back into the Football League?
Wimbledon fans — romantic but wrong-headed? Are they clinging to the past like many traditionally minded ecclesiastical counterparts? As Archbishop Justin has reminded us, the Church, like all institutions, must adapt to changes in society. No good, he argues, continuing to oppose the gay marriage law. If he’s right, no good Wimbledon fans resisting change. The modern way is to move with the times and switch stadia. After all, the Church switches doctrines as readily as liturgies.
So I’veseen the light and am thinking of becoming an Arsenal fan. Their new home, the Emirates Stadium; old-fashioned Highbury abandoned. As the Church’s ‘liberals’ remind us, ‘new truths for a new age.’
Come on, FiF. See the light like me. Get modern. You made a start by backing Pilling, but supporting Gay Rights is already dated. More encouragingly, you and The Society accepted a code of practice. That’s more like it. Disregarding the lessons of history is really twenty-first century. Look at the Environment Agency’s success last winter in abandoning old-fashioned dredging and ditching.
Alan Edwards