The Call to Prayer

I am a Manchester United fan, yet have long held a soft spot for Bolton Wanderers. This is partly because we share a name, but it is mainly down to the fact that I once went to the Reebok Stadium to watch them play against Sunderland back in 2002 in an FA Cup game. Their attitude and style of play was and has continued to have been positive. This season has been tough for them, but on Saturday it got tougher when midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapsed during the Trotters’ FA Cup Quarter Final fixture against Tottenham Hotspur. The game stopped, the doctors and paramedic staff rushed out onto the pitch, knowing something was not right. Referee Howard Webb rightly abandoned the fixture, and an anxious wait for the players, the Bolton fans and the football community began.

It was soon revealed that Muamba has suffered a cardiac arrest. On Sunday afternoon, tributes to Muamba included a round of applause at the Man Utd-Wolves Premier League game. At the Chelsea-Leicester FA Cup fixture, Gary Cahill, formerly of Bolton Wanderers, scored for the Blues and unveiled a message on his T-shirt, ‘Pray 4 Muamba’. On Monday, The Sun ran the headlines ‘God is in Control’ and ‘Pray for Muamba’. The Daily Telegraph sports section was fronted by a picture of Gary Cahill’s dedication to Muamba complete with articles celebrating his professionalism and playing ability as well as praising the efforts of the paramedics. The paper also published numerous messages from Twitter and interviews - Jack Wilshere: ‘Everyone keep praying!’; Wayne Rooney: ‘praying for him and his family’; Justin Hoyte: ‘Please keep fmuamba in ur prayers’; Stuart Holden: ‘Praying for you Fab’; Jermaine Defoe: ‘Pray for Fab. God willing he will pull through’; Andrea Pirlo: Muamba is ‘our colleague, we pray he gets well soon’; and, Emmanuel Adebayor: ‘we are all praying for him and hope for a speedy recovery’ (all comments were printed in the Daily Telegraph).

The common theme of these tweets, comments and press reports were the words ‘pray’ and ‘praying’. Tottenham defender Kyle Walker tweeted: ‘Doesn’t matter who you support [or] if you aren’t a football fan. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t religious. Pray for Fabrice Muamba’. A dedicated professional, Muamba has a bright future and will hopefully be able to return to first class action. The collapse must have been shocking to witness, and it brought back painful memories of players Marc-Vivien Foé and Antonio Puerta who had died after heart attacks on the pitch. The call to prayer is interesting, and is understandable – ‘prayer’ as a concept has taken on an everyday meaning – some might pray that they will do well in exams or that their football team will win the title, yet do so without having religious belief. In these contexts, ‘to pray’ becomes a stronger way of saying ‘to hope/to will/to want/to wish’. There will obviously be many who will pray for Muamba’s successful recovery who do so with belief in the divine, yet when newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Telegraph place so much focus on prayer, it would seem that they were appealing to an audience beyond those with faith.

The BBC’s Home Editor Mark Easton published an interesting article (Prayers for Muamba) on Monday, highlighting various studies and surveys undertaken by the likes of Sir Francis Galton and the BBC on the effectiveness of prayer.  Such studies are contentious, and it is unclear how or if one could quantify the effects of prayer if someone has been healed or if a prayer appears to have been answered. Is it divine intercession, good medicine or strong willpower? Maybe it is a combination of the three? Galton’s 1872 study was influenced by his thought that ‘if praying was effective, then monarchs should live longer than comparable groups’ (Easton) due to commonly spoken phrases such as ‘God Save the King/Queen’. His research found that men of the gentry lived to roughly 70 years on average, whilst the lowest average (of around 64 years) belonged to the male members of royalty. Galton concluded that “the sovereigns are literally the shortest-lived of all who have the advantage of influence. The prayer has, therefore, no efficacy.” This survey is not flawless, and I doubt that those who belief in the power of prayer would take it to heart. Prayer is a key part of religious ritual and practice, as demonstrated in the 5 prayers a day undertaken by Muslims, the congregation getting to their feet in a Catholic service to proclaim the ‘Our Father’ or the quiet prayer one might recite before bedtime. It is perhaps the most personal aspect of faith – a sense of talking to or praising the divine on a one-to-one basis or as a community.

What have the events from and since Saturday revealed about the UK? Well, for a start, we have seen that football, so often criticised, has a conscience and can bring out the very best in people. This has been seen in the actions of Owen Coyle and Phil Gartside accompanied and stayed with Muamba in hospital, the paramedics who rushed to his attention, the fans who showed support for the decision to abandon the game, the referee Howard Webb who realised that the game could not continue, and the FA for allowing Bolton’s midweek game with Aston Villa to be indefinitely postponed. It often takes a horrible accident for the best in people to emerge and in a sport recently tarnished with racist abuse, sectarian troubles, corruption and poor governance it is easy to ignore the spirit that keeps the beautiful game beautiful. There is a universal language of football, infecting people from all over the globe. I was once fortunate enough to go on a tour around the Galapagos and whilst having dinner with my family and the Ecuadorian boat captain, we talked about football for almost all the meal. He was delighted to know that we were United fans, as Ecuadorian Antonio Valencia had just signed for the Red Devils.

The comments have also demonstrated show how religious language has influenced our own language. This is hardly surprising: the translation into English and the famous King James Bible edition have had a marked effect on the English language, with phrases and terminology shaping and consolidating the language, ending the dominance of Latin and aiding the shift from Catholic to Protestant Britain. Benedict Anderson has written extensively on the subject, calling it the process of print capitalism, which helps establish nations and feelings of Englishness. Print capitalism and the development of the English language, meant that Latin lost its monopoly on print as works were gradually published and made available in the vernacular. Books, newspapers and novels, written in the vernacular, allowed their readers to realise that there existed a ‘horizontal comradeship’ across society, consuming the same, shared culture. The English language helped create the English, and Christian ideas from the key text, the Bible, pervaded our language.

The effect of Shakespeare on our language has also been influential. Bernard Levin perfectly summed up the impact of the Bard: “If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ``It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare....” (For the rest of the quote, see the video below) If Shakespeare has had such an influence, Biblical language, translated into English, reaching so many people must have had more.

The calls to pray for Muamba in his hour of need, encouraging the public to remember him in their thoughts and prayers does not display or highlight public religiosity, but instead highlights the influence of religion on the shaping and development of the English language and national consciousness. Some will pray for his recovery by asking the divine to help him, whilst some will keep him in their thoughts and encourage others to do the same. Both are valuable, and hopefully both will contribute to his recovery. A dedicated professional and bright hope for the future, Fabrice Muamba will be grateful for the immense level of support he has been and is continuing to be shown. Get well soon Muamba, you are in our thoughts and prayers.