‘You’re what?’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘Why do they need one of those?’ These are some of the questions I was asked when I first became the chaplain of Scunthorpe United Football Club in 2002, a position I’ve held ever since. At that time, there were fewer than one hundred sports chaplains across the United Kingdom, mainly in football, but some in Rugby Union, Rugby League, cricket and, er, horse racing. Now there are nearly a thousand.
Not all managements are happy with chaplaincy. Several Premier League clubs don’t have one
So what does a chaplain do? I like to think that a chaplain loiters. I realise that in other spheres, loitering with intent may well be a criminal activity, but in a stadium, loitering often means just being there. Just as hospital chaplains and services padres never know exactly what will come their way, neither does a sports chaplain. Just as with other forms of chaplaincy, sports chaplains are there to minister to the needs of those in their charge.
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