Life's a Team Game

Welcome to the first episode of Faith, Hope and Sport!  Drew Gibson meets Stephen Baxter BEM: former footballer, current manager and thoughtful Christian.

Produced by Commission Christian Radio

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Welcome to Faith, Hope, and Sport, the podcast that thinks more deeply about sport from a faith perspective. In the New Testament, St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth about three things that will always remain faith, hope, and love. But I reckon a lot of people today love sport so much that they think he really should have written Faith, Hope, and Sport. My name's Drew Gibson, and I hope you'll enjoy thinking with me about faith and sport. Today I have here in the studio a man who's been a big name in local football for quite a few years, Stephen Baxter. Very welcome, Stephen. Thank you, Drew. Thank you. Let's find out a bit more about yourself. Tell us a bit about your background, where you're from, where you grew up, and so on.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Well, really, I'm I'm an East Belfast boy growing up here in the Stormont area, Dundonald area, played a lot of football in in and around sort of the schools is where we all really found our feet, I think, in life and in football. Greenwood School, Strandtown School, Orangefield School, all in that sort of East Belfast area.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

I was at Strandtown, but I imagine you were there a year or two after me. I was there fifty-nine to sixty-six. Isn't that awful?

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Oh my word. But I had wonderful memories of school, you know, just growing up with other young lads who were similar to me, enjoying their football, learning your your English and your maths as you were going along and all your spellings along the way. But football was That got in the way of the yeah. You know, can we get out to play a little bit of sport here? As I drive past the Upper New Norris Road all these years, you always look in and see the little green field at the front of Greenwood Primary School where we played as youngsters right at the very start of our lives.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

And so that's telling me that sport was a part of your life from very early days. Was it just football or did you play other sports?

SPEAKER_04 2:19

I guess we probably loved football. We lived in in the Stormont area and growing up there my dad was a big cricketer, but but I also loved his football. So I had a an older brother, two and a half years older than me, my brother Glenn, and then I had another brother, Paul, but he was seven years younger than me. But Glenn and I sort of grew up together and and we lived in Thornhill Parade and there was a big green out the front of our garden. So we played constantly out the front with another six or seven boys from the area. Matches all the time out the front, played at ten o'clock at night when light went down and we were pulled in. But that was how you we made our fun was the ball between us and and we all just went out and played. We then went over to the grounds at Stormonton and played over there, and in in the in the summer months we were playing football, and then we were the next day we went out we had a cricket match. So there was always a bit of that going on. Um but certainly I liked anything that had something to do with a ball, uh, you know, whether it was tennis, table tennis, any anything with to do with a ball, I I would enjoy that sport.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Yes, that sounds familiar to you. I grew up uh I played in Orangefield Park with with all the guys and it was just a lot of fun. We'll come back to this maybe in a minute. You use the word fun, I've used the word fun. Sometimes I think that fun is taken out of sports, even for children these days. But tell us a wee bit about faith uh in your life, Stephen. Did you grow up in a Christian family?

SPEAKER_04 3:41

No, I didn't, albeit that I was sent very faithfully. Um my mum and dad sent us very faithfully to Stormont Presbyterian Church. I grew up in the in the Cubs and the Scouts in Stormont Presbyterian, went to the Sunday school. So we you know, we we had a a great grounding, if you like, always sent to the the organisations and went to Sunday school and stuff. But my mum and dad didn't go to church, but they sent us faithfully. So we would have gone across and wasn't far from where we live, we would have walked across. And I thought that was great. You know, in the Cubs and the Scouts, you got great discipline in your life, uh how you how you had to organise yourself and how you had to go in summer camps and done all sorts of stuff as youngsters. And learning all that sort of early scripture stuff and and just learning about creation and you know and where you came from and all that sort of stuff always sort of resonated with me. There was always a thought process in there. You know, I I then sort of drifted into more serious football as I got a little bit better at it, I suppose, and and then sort of drifting across into England for trials and all of that, and getting picked for Northern Ireland schools, and uh so they sort of put a bit of a stamp on your life, I think, when you when you start showing any sort of any ability and and you get sort of dragged into a system where you're they they they check you out, as they say. So you start mixing with other people and you start growing up in in life. And then I met a fellow called Terry Moore who played for Glen Torrin when I sort of came back from England. Terry, you know, shared his faith very openly, and and I sort of went, Wow, here's a superstar footballer, as I thought, you know, who'd played at Canadian World Cup International, uh, who came back to Captain Glen Torrent. I was at Glen Torren as a 16-year-old coming back from Middlesbrough. And I I sort of listened to Terry and and heard what he was chatting around, and albeit that I didn't act on it right away at 16, it was was three years later when I became a Christian at 19. But all of those things were in my mind around around faith and what God meant and and heaven and hell, all of those things I knew there was a difference. I always knew there was a difference, and it was at 19 before when I made that decision.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

So you became a Christian at nineteen. What was going on in your life in terms of sport and employment at that time? You weren't a professional or were you a professional footballer?

SPEAKER_04 5:54

No, you know, I think the ambition was always, you know, when you were young, when you were I was across to Manchester United when I was thirteen, a year there, and and then I signed for Middlesbrough and I was across at Middlesbrough every school holiday. We were flying back and forth and we stayed in the digs and grew up in that environment with others from all different places in England. And then they either offer your contract or they don't, and they offered me a three-month contract at the time, and I I actually turned it down and said, No, I I want to come home and and signed for Glen Torren. So the I think there's always circumstances in your life. We were back and forth, and I had met a young girlfriend at 16, and I I think I was more excited about her than I was about uh going to live in uh in Middlesbrough. So we made that decision and I came back and signed for the Glens, and you know they were keen to have me and they put me into the first team at 16, and I went to Bannock Estrava in Czechoslovakia with uh the Glenshorn first team and with Ronnie McFall. And so there was a lot going on, and uh within a couple of months I was on trial at Newcastle in England and lots lots happening there. So football was good to me, and in that regard, you put you on a platform early on, but that didn't pay all the bills. You know, football was the dream, but it wasn't sure you you know you needed to find a wee job at the same time. And and I went into employment in Belfast in a sports shop in SS Moors in Belfast, which was I think my mother rang Sammy Moore and said, Well, young boy here loves sport, would you give him a job? And he said, Send him down. And I went down and met them and and they very kindly gave me employment. So it was great, young boy at 16 working in sport, learning the the sports industry, sports business. Uh and I had a great time there for I think I probably stayed four or five years and had a had a great time and learnt the ropes of sales and and uh which would stand me in good stead for later in life when I I opened my own sports business for 21 years.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

You're often associated with one particular club through much of your career, although you're not a different club. Tell us about Crusaders, tell us about going to Crusaders.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

Well, that's that's a real interesting story. I had six years at Linfield, I'd left. A lot of people said that my career was pretty much over. I think I was probably in around about 28, 29, somewhere in that. I'd left Linfield and signed for Lisburn Distillery at the time, signed for Billy Hamilton, who's a great man. So anyway, I I went up to the distillery and I'd signed a three-year deal and I'd I'd stayed for pretty much one season. And after the heights of all the things that we'd done at you know, titles that we'd won at Linfield and goals you'd scored and all that sort of stuff, this was a a change of environment. A very professional club at Linfield and Lisbon Distillery were it was a different, different proposition. And I sort of went, Well, you know, I was coming up sort of 20 at 29, 30, and around that sort of age, and I was going, you know, what I really want with my football career, what what's the next bit? And so that year it wasn't over successful. I'd only scored 13 goals in the league, and I got a phone call out of the blue from Billy saying to me, Stephen, look, Roy Walker's been on the phone and I would like to meet you. And he says, he says, and we're prepared to sell. They had made a record bid from Lisbon Distillery's point of view and paid £15,000 for me. And Roy Walker came in, wanted to meet me, and and I went to meet Roy and met at his house. And anyway, we sat down after 40 minutes and we had a good conversation, and and he said to me, He says, Look, if you come and sign for Crusaders, he says, We'll win the league next season. And I'm going, Oh, come on. You know, Linfield have won the title for six years in a row, and uh and he says, No, he says, You're the missing piece. We we need a centre forward to score goals, and I think you're the man who can do this. We need a centre half in from Dublin. He says, get you, he says, we can do this, we're very close. And I was like, Well, I knew they were in challenging top four, but you know, catch Linfield would be would be a tough act. But anyway, you know, after a lengthy discussion, he said, he said, if you agree to come, I'll sort out the rest with Lisbon Distillery. So we so they got a deal done anyway, and and I decided to go. And lo and behold, what a season we had. And in doing that, we won the the league title and we had with five games to spare. We were fantastic, won the championship winning at Ballamina. And it was I think it was 19 years since Crusaders had won the title. So we we won. I scored on the day with Glenn Hunter to take the the trophy home to save you, and it was an incredible celebration. So that was the start of it. That was great friendships. Obviously, there was a huge God story in there. I was probably one of three or four Christians maybe in the Irish League at that time as footballers.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Um were there any others at Crusaders at that time?

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Well, that was the story. Uh there was David Jeffrey, myself, Johnny Jemison, and it was another lad from Coleraine, I think, at the time. There was like four Christians around the place. And as I say, Roy had contacted me about coming, but in in that sort of interim period, there was about like two, three-month gap before I was coming over in the pre-season. And I'd got this phone call that Glendon Lop, another uh player that was playing for Crusaders at the time, had become a Christian. And I couldn't believe it, it was fair some centre half kickers Granny, uh group player. And anyway, I made some contact with him and I asked him, I said, Is it is this true? I've heard this has come through. And he says me, he says, I have, Stephen, he said, I've become a Christian, and we had a good conversation around all of that. And in that period of sort of eight weeks, I'd you know, arrived in the Crusaders for preseason training in sort of July. And in that period, Glenn had had been chatting with three or four other lads, and all of a sudden there were three other lads who were Christians when I got there, and you know, Sidney Burroughs, Glenn Hunter, and I'd came across. And so I was thinking there was a reason in this, and Glenn Delott would be that Christian friend, you know, brother in the Lord as you if you like. But all of a sudden, there was three others, it was five of us who were fellow Christian players all in this in this team together, and I'm going, This is amazing. But in that one year, Drew, in the conversations that we had in the title-winning team, we had six Dublin players who were just amazing lads, friends to this day, people who I still keep in contact with, who all ring me and I met them recently. These lads were went on to become superstar friends. And in that period of time, Roy Walker became a Christian, the manager, Roy MacDonald, his assistant became a Christian, his father became a Christian, the kit man became a Christian. We had twelve Christians in the first team squad inside of four months. It was something that I just sat back in wonder and disbelief and went, God, you're doing something here that I just never saw possible. You know, I've been a Christian for quite a while and been around the Irish League scene, and all of a sudden I was seeing something happening in Irish League football that I'd never witnessed before. And a team that was on the charge, if you like, as well, winning football matches. And these Dublin guys were going, What's this all about? We were labelled the God Squad in the in the press, and we went on to win the title. And that uh Gibson Cup that year was taken round all over Northern Ireland and the so many churches, you know, it was such a such an incredible thing to witness and to uh who knows the lives that were transformed and changed through all of that period. And we still talk about it to this day. There was a video made in the uh Whitewell Church, One Road to Heaven. Uh, I watched it there about a year ago, and it just blew my mind. So these are the things that we were involved in, that God was using us in that process. We were just living it. It wasn't something that we were sitting back and saying, Look at us. It wasn't any of that. You were just getting on with doing your job, but we were all in the in the centre of it. And God was just moving among people and touching lives and changing people and doing things I had never dreamt possible. And now you sit in Irish League football, and I'm looking at Philip Mitchell's work at the Chaplaincy in Sport, where there's now ministers and chaplains in every Irish League club, and both north and south, and in all walks of sport, not just football, and there's like hundreds of ministers and chaplains out in the sporting world, and I just go, Wow. That that is just faith on the move. Yes, indeed. That we never dreamed possible. But God done something very special and broke into sport and and and you see it now the world over with the the Christians that are around the place, and I just thank God for it every day.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Well, can I take you on then from being a player at Crusaders? You then moved into management. Did you go straight from playing into management at Crusaders, or was there some sort of transition elsewhere?

SPEAKER_04 14:36

There was a little gap. I I announced my retirement. I was about three or four months off my 38th birthday, and and I uh I called it a day. My body was shot to bits. The amount of centre house who were kicking me and jumping on my back. Uh it was just time to stop. And I enjoyed every second. I had 19 years of of semi-professional football in Northern Ireland, won all the trophies, and it was just an incredible run. Loved every minute of it. But I said, time to stop. I wanted to go and play a bit of golf, wanted to spend a little bit more time with family, and I was very heavily involved in Bangor Elam Church at the time. So I stepped aside that summer, and uh I was out until uh the February. So I had a sort of three quarters of a season off, and we were just watching a little bit of football. My friend uh Lee Doherty and I were out watching a little bit of football here and there on a Saturday, but no intentions of football management, just enjoying family, enjoying life and four young children. So, as football has it, I got a phone call. Uh there was a vacancy at Crusaders, we were without a manager for a month, and my old chairman Jim Semple picked up the phone, rang me, and he and he said, Stephen, he says, the club's a mess. So having been in this fabulous football club that had won so many things, a couple of titles and on my time, and then having left, you know, four years later, the club is now on its knees, 1.2 million in debt on its way out, about to lock the doors. The team was bottom of the league, was about to be relegated, and Jim Raymond says, Stephen, the club's in an awful state. Would you come and give us a hand? There was nine games to go, and I went in, I said, Jim, I will be down on Tuesday night to take training. He says, I'm coming down. You know, it was just I'll come and give a hand for nine games. So I had no intention of going in. I hadn't thought it through, I hadn't said, Um, you know, here for the long haul, uh we'll come in and we'll we'll give a hand. It was always my way, I'll come and give a hand. So we went in, nine games turned into 19 years. Uh so but it was just an incredible journey with incredible people making incredible life stories and building memories with people and lives with that we transformed and changed, and not just in football terms, in lots of ways, and I had the privilege and pleasure of working with these people and and speaking at their funerals.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

He vowed to protect his people's temple and the worship of their God.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

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SPEAKER_00 17:44

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SPEAKER_02 17:55

Commission presents I, Caiaphas. You can hear this series and many others. Just search for Commission Radio Drama wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

You've mentioned that there are two sides to being a manager. One side is looking after the team in terms of playing and results, performance. But you also hint it as another side to it, that there's a personal side to it, that you're dealing with people who are actually people. They're not robots, they are young men mostly. Could you tell us a little bit about some of the pressures that you see players working under these days? And was it the same in your day or has it changed?

SPEAKER_04 18:42

I think that the pressures are immense, you know, and more so probably nowadays. You know, I've been in the game a long time and you know, having played for Crusaders for six years and Mannings for nineteen, you know, it was a twenty-five-year stint at one football club. And certainly the environment that we work in today is much more professional, but there's much more pressure on players. And I often say that the evil, which is social media I call it, is uh enhanced this pressure where everyone now has got a comment to make around how people look, act, perform.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

And and those comments aren't always positive, is that a fair thing to say?

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Well, for me, when you when you look at comments in all walks of life, not just football, but in all walks of life, p people generally always want to go down the road of having something bad to say as opposed to having something very positive to say. I remember very early on in my coaching experience because when when you go into football management you have to take on these coaching rules. And and so I had five years on the coaching ladder, as they call it, and I remember uh hearing someone saying very, very early on, he said, if you don't have something very positive to say, don't say anything at all. And I thought to myself, Whoa, take that on board. And if you're gonna get the best out of people, they need to be hearing positive messages. And I I always responded to people when they were positive with me. If people are really negative to you and squealing at you all the time, you don't really want to be around that person. You don't want you actually want to get away from them. So I understand at the levels that we work at. You need the Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment every now and again, but you also 90% of the time you need that encouragement that will make you feel good about yourself and positive about what you're doing, and encourage the talent out of that person. So I took that on board. I just see that as a way of life, that if you're gonna get somewhere with people, you have to bring out the talent. And I think in this world that we live in today, the pressures are now coming from this social media world where anyone and anybody can come on to the keyboard warriors they call them, where they can say anything they like and they're faceless in their identity and say stuff about folks which are are so cruel. And then the same people will say whenever someone commits suicide around all this sort of stuff, then they'll come on and say, Isn't that terrible? How bad is all of this when they don't really think it through.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yes, I I watched a programme the other day about referees in rugby, and some of the comments that they were getting through social media were absolutely appalling. Just dreadful stuff. I guess football's exactly the same.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

It is, and you know, there can be lots of different views on all of this here, and it's and it's easy for someone like me to turn around and say that. You know, you should be thinking about your comments and all this sort of stuff. It's not wrong to have an opinion. It's not wrong to call something out, particularly whether it's a decision that costs your club something in a football match or whatever the case may be. But you don't need to take it to the extremes and have an open debate about something, you don't mean you have to fall out about it. You know, I'm always up for a good conversation, a lively debate around anything. But we should never fall out about it. We should always be friends and move on to the next bit of it because it it's only a game. Always remember.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

But I think from what you've been saying, Stephen, that you have a pastoral role with players and maybe with other folk in the uh club. No, it's not a a role as a minister, but you care about people and caring about people means you have to take action sometimes. Have you found that you have been called to step in perhaps to a player's life when things are going badly? Has that ever happened?

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Probably ha happened maybe there's been two or three really difficult situations. And they can be very difficult moments when you're in in that place. And not just with players, but also with a fan base. You know, we we we had a uh sizable fan base at Crusaders and there was a couple of things that happened there that that I needed to deal with, you know, on behalf of a family and and with people. So you you are sometimes seen as their representative and they they sometimes look to you and you have to have those those words at the right time. And often maybe if if I don't have the ability to deal with it, I always feel that I can I will get somebody else who has the ability to deal with it.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

I think that's very wise.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

And uh and that's uh that's how you look at it. If if someone needs to fly the plane, get the pilot, don't uh try and do it yourself. But I just think it's a a little bit of care and wisdom that you need to apply to most situations. But on the flip side of that, as a manager, you also have to exercise ruthlessness whenever things aren't going well and people are not doing what they're meant to do. So I don't want you to mix that part of it up. But it's it's all it's all pastoral, it can be it can be pastoral, but it can also be sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

You have a formal job to do, and that job has to be well done. There's no question about that.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Absolutely. There is a job of work to be done, and and and if you don't get that job of work done, then it can't work at this level. Uh-huh. Uh you have to have the talents to work at this level. And if you don't meet those talents, well, thank you. It's been great knowing you, but your talents will have to work somewhere else, you know.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Speaking of working somewhere else, we've talked about Crusaders and the time that you spent there. You're now somewhere else, aren't you? You're at Carrick Rangers. Yes. How long have you been there?

SPEAKER_04 24:10

I've been there about seven months, eight months.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

And how are things going?

SPEAKER_04 24:15

I'm really enjoying it. I went in in October last year. I stepped away from Crusaders after 19 years, and it was, as I say, it was an incredible journey. It was like died in the wool, uh, red and black blood, as people used to say about Stephen Baxter. But I often think in football there comes a time when you have to say that's the right time. I think you get that in jobs and you get that in other walks of life. And I knew it was the right time for me to step aside. So I did that. When I stepped out, I still had a year to run in my contract, so I chatted the club and said, I'm gonna go. And we all shook hands and we all hugged and we'd left, and I gave them plenty of time to deal with all of that, and that was all good. So it was a long goodbye, six months, and we left. And I had wanted to take some time away for me. I needed some natural time to rest and just to absorb everything that had happened in that period of time, and and just take time with family and take the family on holiday. Because football is full on, 24 hours a day, phone calls in the middle of the night sometimes, and and you're you're at it non-stop. So I needed some time, and you know, you get a week's holiday, and that's about it. You're still you're trying to sign players on the beach walking up and down, the wife's saying, will you sit down and turn the phone off? Because it's a fast moving industry, and so I needed time away from it for lots of reasons.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

You mentioned a couple of words there, Stephen. Let me pick you up on them. You talk about being fast moving, and you use the word a fast moving industry.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I think anybody who follows sport at all will have seen over the past generation that it has become an industry. It's work. And I always find this curious because sport originally was a break from work, and for most people at most levels, it's always been like that. It's something you do and you enjoy it. But that seems to be drifting away, not just at the professional level, but at the semi-professional level, amateur level, even at schools level, even down to primary schools level. There seems to be a seriousness about sport that I wonder just how valuable that is.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

No, I and I don't disagree with some of the things you're saying. The elite sports people that are the Rory McElroys of this world at the top end of the golf industry, the people that reach the top at tennis and snooker and all these things I watch on telly and I say the talent, the time that they spend practising to get to the very top, because they're brilliant at their craft, the the rewards that come with that are huge. And you have to spend so much time doing all of that. But I say to all the footballers, which is my business, the fail rate for footballers, for young footballers, is something like 92% or something. I can't make it. When I I came through that industry as a youngster with all the dreams and growing up, I get asked to do things, I speak to a lot of people, and I always just say this whatever you do, just enjoy playing football, just enjoy fun sport because there's so many of these kids are just gonna be natural amateur footballers. And if that's your fun, that's your fun, because they're never gonna go anywhere with it. And I do worry when I see a lot of the coaches on the sidelines going bananas and they're taking this to a different level when I played. So I get it, what you're saying is entirely true. They need to get the fun spark element back into children's sport because they've lost a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

And perhaps at all levels the idea of rest is worth thinking about. If sport is supposed to be restful in some way, and uh, as you say, amateur players enjoying running about in a Saturday afternoon, it's a break from work. As soon as you take that rest away, something seems to go wrong.

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Yeah. Well, my rest is my golf game. I I I I I do love my a game of golf. I play off a nine handicap, so I can hit the ball okay round the golf course, but I'm not that good in comparison. There's so many people I play golf with, and I say, they're real golfers, we're just messing with us. So when my round goes wrong, which it always does uh halfway round, and I hit one out of bounds, I couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less because it's a breakaway from football. It's what you just said there, it's getting away from the pressure of what you really do, you know, the pressures of of the sport, the pressures of your industry, the pressures of all the bits and pieces. To walk around a beautiful golf course with the the nature, the grass, the rabbits or the squirrels that you see running about from time to time and seeing these lovely golf courses and playing and enjoying that, that's like a rest because you're you're completely alone in your own thoughts. So don't take it too serious, is what I'm pretty much trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

Stephen, you talked about rest and in scriptural terms we have Sabbath as rest and part of Sabbath is worship. But what about your own ability to rest? Do you find that you need times of rest, and how do they come about?

SPEAKER_04 29:32

I think like the elite sports people that we talk about around the the disciplines that are very formally set up for them to follow, it's exactly the same for for people like us. Putting a discipline into your life to make time for rest is an everyday occurrence for me. You know, obviously you have Sunday church and always trying to find that those you know moments always to be there. But your everyday encounter with God is important, hugely important. So I I see that where I always try to set a a time aside in the day, if it's a 30-minute process where you can get a chance to read, a chance to listen to a couple of worship songs, just enough to sort of just set yourself apart because you know that the rest of the day is gonna be phone calls, gonna be a lot of people wanting to ask you questions about X, Y, and Z. You know you're gonna get dragged into so many things and making decisions around so many other things. But it's just that moment where I feel that every day you need that little bit of time away for yourself where you can just come apart and just talk with God and rest in his presence and just sit at his feet. And for me, a little bit of I love my worship songs. That's uh something that is is is really great. Rest for me is is so very, very important to make the discipline, and that that's the important bit.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

I I agree with you completely. In fact, I get a little bit annoyed sometimes when I hear people talking about that daily time with the Lord as something that's study. Now, I'm a theologian and I I know all about study, but to see it as rest and refreshment rather than another bit of work that I have to do. So I'm I'm with you in that entirely.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

Yeah. No, it's very important.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

But have you found that sometimes players do inappropriate things in order to get a bit of a break, in order to get away from things? The two that come to mind that I think professional sports people are sometimes associated with are alcohol and gambling. Have you come across that as a problem or not really?

SPEAKER_04 31:45

At the level that we've been working at for a long time, we're very fortunate to qualify for Europe. I think we had 18, 19 rounds of Europe in my time at Crusaders, which meant we were travelling every summer to somewhere in Europe to play a a big football match. And the disciplines of the boys having to always report in their training methods, going to play these big games, preparing for you know league title challenges for over the course of a of a full season, they're very disciplined individuals. They're nearly like programmed individuals how they operate, with the staff that that we would have had around us. There was definitely a a time to take the foot off the pedal and say, right, you're getting a couple of hours, go and relax and enjoy yourself. Whatever they do and enjoying themselves is up to them. And I used to say to them, I said, You're all over twenty-one, even though some of you are only 19. In other words, you're old enough to make your own decisions in life. Just don't have the police land at my door for me to sort this all out. But you're teaching them things along the way, and you're saying to them, Listen, you're over twenty one. Don't have the police land here, and I have to bail you out of prison. You know, you get caught in a country here for doing something stupid. So not one player in all those years let me down about anything. They were the greatest bunch of boys I ever worked with, but they all knew the rules. I was very fortunate in my day. Uh I have heard a few things uh around the football world, around different things, and and you will get that. That's normal. And you will have people go off the rails here and there, but they're all human beings. And as far as I know, all these human beings always fail somewhere down the track.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Well, I suppose that gives us a a natural link in to a question about the gospel and sport, because you're right, we are all failed human beings. We're all in need of hearing the gospel and uh salvation. But have you found any tensions between your faith and your involvement in football? Or have the two just sort of naturally gone together?

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Coming from a sporting industry, there's a big competitive edge, but always very competitive between people. And there can be, you know, a lot of competition and people can get a bit ratty with you around certain things. But in saying all of that, all through my time in the game, I have never once had anybody challenge me around Christianity. Albeit I see certain behaviours and see how people get on. I think deep down in all of these folks, there's always a no matter how what way you see them behave at times, I know inside of them there's a spiritual part of everyone. And it's how you would tap into that. And so to answer your question, I don't see a lot of people coming against Christianity. Whilst they may swerve and get on with in whatever way they want to get on, I don't think they want to abuse that power because I think they know they're coming against our authority. I think they know where they're coming from.

SPEAKER_03 34:45

Another question that I'd like to ask Stephen is about life in the province here. And we have two communities. And they, uh to say the least, don't always get on terribly well together. And that's reflected in in sport. There are some teams that are generally seen as nationalist or Catholic teams, some that are generally seen as as Protestant or unionist teams. My impression is that's breaking down. Is that a fair impression, or is there still a certain amount of division?

SPEAKER_04 35:18

I guess as a a young Protestant boy growing up in East Belfast and Orangefield school and and all of that, when I was fourteen we went and played St. Joseph's of Derry and we played at the pitch beside the Brandywell and the and the Orangefield bus was stoned leaving the ground. So as a 14-year-old, you knew the tensions in Northern Ireland back then, and I have to say that in a year or two of that scenario, uh, because I think if if I remember rightly, I think the hunger strikes were going on back in those days, because our game at against the England schools was cancelled because of all of the problems that was going on in Northern Ireland. So I grew up in the middle of those tensions at that moment of 14. But within a year or two, I've got picked for the Northern Ireland Youth International team. And we we had players from every school in Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant players all playing together. I roomed with Catholic players, and having grown up from that age with all these guys as your teammates right beside you, fighting a bit out for club and country, as the man says, then meeting all the Dublin players when you went into Irish League teams very early on and becoming really friendly with them all. I have never had any issues around people either that that were close to me in all these circles, never any fallouts, no any problems, any issues. The sporting world has actually done so much about bringing people together rather than divide people. It's just a blessing to be in around that atmosphere of how people all get along, we all laugh at each other, and it's just tremendous. And even then, as we have progressed in through the years, I have also been so lucky in my first year as Crusaders Manager, we had a big rivalry with Donegal Celtic, challenging for the league, and we came out on top. But I remember forming a great relationship with our manager, great relationship with some of their board, and and even when we were going up in the West Belfast, the play matches in areas that I hadn't been to, we were so well received, you know, because I was a big Linfield player at the time, you know, and so well received, and every area I have been to, all through my football and career, I've been so well received. And Cliftonville fans, when we won the league, we we won our first title at Cliftonville. The Clintonville fans stayed behind, clapped us off. We went, I went over and clapped all with them, just immense. So I have so much respect for both sides of the community in Northern Ireland. I think sport has done so much to bind everybody together rather than divide us.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

Stephen, thanks very much indeed for giving us your time today. Thanks for all of your comments. You've given us a lot to think about, and we wish you every blessing in your work and in your life. You've been listening to Faith, Hope and Sport, hosted by Drew Gibson. It was a Commission Christian radio production. More of our podcasts can be found on our website, CommissionRadio.org.