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So the battle for the World Cup has finally begun. You could hardly miss it. Already in anticipation the logo on my computer search engine has been jumping up and down in excitement. And there’ll be many cheers and groans ahead.

The truth is that I’ve been reluctant to talk about football ever since an episode that happened more than twenty years ago. George Carey had just been chosen as Archbishop of Canterbury, and I’d just been elected Chief Rabbi, when someone discovered that we had one major passion in common. We were both great Arsenal fans. So he wondered whether we might like to have our first ecumenical gathering in his box at Highbury stadium, then Arsenal’s home ground: a midweek match for obvious religious reasons.

We both enthusiastically agreed, and the great night came. Before the start of the match we were taken out onto the sacred turf itself where we presented a cheque to charity. The public address system announced who we were, and you could hear the buzz go around the ground. Whichever way you played the theological wager, that night Arsenal had friends in high places. They could not possibly lose.

That night Arsenal went down to their worst home defeat in more than sixty years. They lost 6-2 to Manchester United. The next day a national newspaper reported the story and said, if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi between them can’t bring about a win for Arsenal, does this not finally prove that God does not exist?

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