Willand vs Didcot Town
Football and philosophy often walk hand in hand. At least they do in my match reports.
From Johan Cruyff echoing Aristotle with “Football is simple, but the hardest thing is to play simple football”, to Paul Gascoigne accidentally discovering the limits of theory against reality, along with a healthy dose of surrealism, with “I never predict anything, and I never will”, there has always been a union.
We’re often told, usually by Philosophy graduates who don’t write match reports, that Philosophy is an abstract discipline distant from everyday life. But its questions surface everywhere in life, even on a muddy football pitch on a Saturday afternoon. After all, philosophy concerns itself with the fundamental questions of existence: what is real, how should we behave, and why things happen the way they do. People talk about Sports Science and Data Science like it’s going to save football, or at least propel it into the next millenium, but despite its modern prestige, science is merely a branch of philosophy that just so happened to start measuring things. Philosophy doesn’t worry itself with XG or HRV stats. Philosophy is about the lives we lead, and the games we play.
Consider ethics, the philosophical study of right and wrong. On a football pitch this raises immediate questions. Should midfielders be strict utilitarians, always seeking the greatest good for the greatest number by passing rather than shooting? Or is there a deontological duty to attempt the spectacular strike whenever the opportunity arises, regardless of the consequences?
Then there is the philosophy of religion. If God is truly omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, why does He allow our team to concede late equalisers? Theologians have wrestled with the Problem of Evil for centuries; the problem of the 92nd-minute corner remains equally unresolved.
Epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, also appears frequently in football. How do we know the ball crossed the line? Did the striker really mean that pass, or was it a fortunate accident? In grassroots football, knowledge is rarely certain and VAR is replaced by the loudest voice on the touchline.
Metaphysics, the study of what exists, raises deeper questions still. What truly constitutes a football match? Twenty-two players? Two goals? A referee?
And occasionally those questions appear not in lecture halls, but on football pitches.
Philosophers have long debated the nature of existence. The more pressing question on Saturday was slightly simpler: does football still exist if nobody can find the ball?
The matchday soon descended into something resembling existential football. First a training ball vanished into the metaphere, the intrepid media team deemed responsible, if not for its sudden disappearance then certainly for its retrieval, before the dugout’s reserve supply of balls threatened to evaporate entirely, leaving the players confronting the uncomfortable question of whether football can exist without a football.
Before that philosophical crisis emerged, however, there was still the small matter of the game itself.
Willand came into the game on the crest of back to back victories for the first time this season, and with confidence high it was a familiar starting eleven that took to the field against Didcot Town.
The Oxfordshire opponents came into the game following a February that included three victories in which they scored 8 goals without reply, and a single defeat to Sporting Club Inkberrow in which they were on the wrong side of a 6-4 scoreline.
It was Willand who began brightly and inside two minutes were already testing the Didcot defence. Dorothy cut in from the left and unleashed a powerful strike that forced the visiting goalkeeper into action. The keeper managed to get his gloves to the effort, pushing it away to safety.
Rovers continued to press and nearly broke the deadlock in the 11th minute through a lively exchange between Jagger-Cane and Dorothy, the former latching on to a direct pass before his strike was well saved by Bedwell, the ball falling to Dorothy who will feel he should have done better with the chance, with Didcot’s number one eventually holding on firmly to keep the scores level.
Didcot responded midway through the half with a promising chance of their own. A determined run carried the visitors into the Willand penalty area where Ashby-Hammond managed to get a touch but could not quite secure possession. As the Didcot attacker shaped to turn and shoot, the Willand stopper intervened to prevent a clear opportunity.
Half Time – Willand 0 – Didcot 0
Changes were chimed, if not rung at half-time, Kempster replacing Rooke and the game continued with the ebb and flow of match where it seemed neither team was going to trouble the scoresheet.
The game took a turn toward the absurd in the 88th minute, the ball heading out for a throw-in as the visitors mounted another attack, only for the to deflect off the linesman and over the goal line. To the surprise of most in the ground, including the referee, the linesman flagged for a corner, which thankfully came to nothing.
Despite the contentions of the Baylis stand, it appears that the linesman was in fact correct.
With the crowd wound up, and the game winding down, it was left to Bailey Kempster to score a late, late winner for Willand, cutting in past a number of Didcot players before unleashing an unstoppable strike past Bedwell.
The final whistle blew soon after, although the action continued, with the Didcot keeper shown a red card, apparently for his description of the referee’s performance.
While three wins on the spin should be applauded, Ben Watson and his team won’t be resting on any laurels, with games coming thick and fast until the end of the season, and Southern League safety still the priority.
What the game should remind us though, is that sometimes we can overcomplicate things; formations, free-kicks – even the philosophy of football. In the end it really just comes down to one thing. Tautology. The philosophical notion that something just is.
“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” as Gertrude Stein would say.
In football philosophy, Thierry Henry may have said it better though.
“Sometimes you have to score goals”
Full Time – Willand 1 – Didcot 0
