Is the Physical Side of Life Under Attack?
by Sinead Murphy On Tuesday night last week, my ten-year-old had his final football session before England entered upon its second national lockdown of 2020. Fifteen young boys, cheeks glowing on a cold, dark night, sent back indoors, lest they infect someone by calling out for the ball or by tackling to defend their goal. Fifteen young boys and their coach, running about together on a football pitch in the brisk northern air – a health risk, it turns out. Meanwhile, at the elite end of football, it is ‘safe’ to continue, the big clubs observing strict measures and administering tests for Covid as a daily routine. There was resistance to the Government’s decision, a letter signed by over a hundred sports personalities. It was not successful; few rational interventions in this Covid year have been successful. But even if it had succeeded, it would have granted only a brief reprieve from what seems to be an established pattern in football, emerging long before Covid was ever heard of. This pattern is worth our notice, because it is one thread in that knot of converging agenda that is the Covid crisis. It is: the assault on our physical lives. COVID-19 is being widely proclaimed as the only assault on our physical lives that is currently worth our notice – it ...