Article
Comment
Sport
4 min read

Why are sportspeople so superstitious?

Routine and rhythm help performance, but sporting superstition begs a question, writes Jonny Reid. Who do we really think is in control?

Jonny Reid leads the communications team at Christians in Sport.

A rugby ball sails towards a player in a striped jersey from the foot of a kicker who has a leg and an arm extended out.
England v. Argentina, RWC 2023.
RFU.

Guinness’ Rugby World Cup advert commands supporters: “Don’t Jinx It!” The advertiser explained:

“All of Ireland will be supporting the team with every fibre, but our campaign urges fans to remember that their actions are as important as the team on the pitch, they need to play their part too, don’t jinx it.” 

Superstitions on the pitch are just as prominent as those off it. England legend Jonny Wilkinson always wore the same t-shirt under his match shirt as a lucky charm, the Welsh side used to ritually vomit before games and for decades club side Bath played without a number 13. 

So why is it that sport is so fill of superstition?  

A longing for control 

We feel like we’re in control until a sudden injury or a major pandemic arrives and we realise that we may be less in control than we’d like. 

Indian sports psychologist Ashis Nandy thinks this may be why cricketers are so superstitious. In a game full of failure, which has a high degree of luck, it is inevitable that players will turn to superstition to help regain a sense of control: 

'No wonder cricketers lean on superstition as a crutch. They cannot accept the awful truth - that the game is governed by erratic umpiring decisions, random tosses and unpredictable seam movement - so they invent a coping strategy to persuade themselves they are in control.'

We want to be in control but we know we’re not.  

Whether it’s a snapped Achilles tendon at a random training session, a contract not renewed at the end of a season or point deductions due to mismanagement by owners - sport is littered with examples which remind us we’re not in charge.  

It’s worth saying that routine is different to superstition. US soccer psychologist Tim Perrin argues that routines are integral for the elite sportsperson. “Performance is about routines—they take us into performance, and superstitions are very much a part of that,” Perrin said. “They are a way we can very habitually, automatically, and unconsciously take ourselves into performance mode.” 

Repetition and routine are a key part of sport. Not only do they improve our skill levels (think of the 10,000 hour theory) but they also help ease the mental pressures faced by athletes. As Perin explains, the emotional demands and strains of sport can be lessened by routines that “allow certain things (to be done) on a mechanistic, repetitive nature” and can thus be “put on autopilot.” 

This is the reason for Jonny Wilkinson’s famous pre-kick routine or the even more extreme Dan Biggar’s version which has become known as the ‘Biggarena.’ His idiosyncratic routine once proved an Internet sensation

When does routine tip into superstition? It’s when it becomes irrational and when a change to that routine leads to distinct mental torment or a level of discomfort.  

Superstition, as we observe it, in the stands or the pub or on the pitch provokes questions for all of us: Is there a way I can be in control? Or am I actually under control from a higher power? 

Who is in control? 

When things don’t happen as we’d like, it’s easy to feel pretty disillusioned. But do our superstitious tendencies point towards something bigger? 

Among Christians there is the belief that we humans are created in the image of God and that he gave us the weighty responsibility to live in the world and also to shape it. While we have responsibility for how we live, we only have penultimate agency. Ultimate power over events lies in hands bigger than ours.  

The trouble is we chafe at our limited role in all this. 

Dan Strange, in his book Making Faith Magnetic says:  

“deep down we know we’re not divine and that we need something greater than us in which to find meaning and legitimacy. So we still invest in other things that can give us a sense of ultimate meaning and purpose.” 

This could be our partner or family. It could quite easily be our sporting career. We load them with an unbearable weight of responsibility, that none of these substitutes for God can handle because they too are penultimate not ultimate. 

In the book of John, Jesus calls himself “the good shepherd” - the one who guides the flock of sheep, whether they are aware of it or not. 

The world is not controlled by luck or energy or even random chance, it is in the hands of a loving God, a loving shepherd who leads his sometimes reluctant flock to where they need to go. 

In the stories of Jesus we see someone who exercises an extraordinary control over the world - over nature (walking on water), over disease (healing blind people) and over evil powers (exorcising the .disturbed) He shows us a world which isn’t just defined by fate or by an angry impersonal Deity but one in which there is a sense that we are both in control and under control.  

Far from living in a world of randomness and luck, maybe after all we live in a world where a good God works through the details of our lives and is with us in the ups and the downs, in the injury, de-selection, contract confusion, dip in form and in the cup wins, record breaking, peak-performing moments of our sporting careers.  

Routine and rhythm can help sporting performance but superstition ultimately leads us to ask a question. Who do we really think is in control? 

Article
Assisted dying
Care
Comment
Easter
5 min read

I know who will be most affected by legalising assisted dying

Contemplating lent revives hard memories and raises fresh fears.

Ryan is an ordained Priest in the Church of England, currently serving in south London. 

A close up of a forehead bearing an ash cross marked on it.
Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash.

“What’s that - a face tattoo?” 

These were the words of one person as I walked past them on the streets on a recent Wednesday, with the ashes of last year’s burnt palm-branches placed across my forehead in the shape of the cross.  

The cross has been a symbol of hope for over two millennia; that even in the most painful of circumstances, darkness does not have the final say, including in death.  

As a society, we don’t really talk about death that much. Margot Robbie’s Barbie was the quintessential party-pooper when she pondered: 

 “do you guys ever think about dying?”. 

It’s no fun to dwell on death and dying, and for many of us, we put it off as long as we can. That all changed last year with the introduction of the assisted dying bill into the Houses of Parliament. Our national attention was, for a rare moment, captured by death.  

As a parish priest, I’ve seen the finality of burying someone into the ground. I’ve seen the sadness in the eyes of those trying to grieve. 

The words of Ash Wednesday, which remind us that we are ‘but dust, and to dust we shall return’ are echoed in the famous words that the priest recites in those last moments of burial, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’. In that moment, amongst the bereaved, there is no escaping the inevitability of death. It is the ultimate statistic, 1 in 1 die. 

Whilst death is of course universal and will affect us all, the impact of this assisted dying bill could have consequences for some of the most vulnerable in society.  

As I reflect on my time as a Priest in East London, this is not abstract theory, but something I lived with each day. I served amongst a hugely diverse, vibrant, community in one of the poorest parts of the city. As I try to picture some the people I’ve walked alongside, I know it is these lives that will be most affected.  

One of the reasons I have concerns about the bill is the prospect of these people being coerced into ending their own lives prematurely, by a world that has already told them their lives are of little value. There are already huge disparities in access to the current provision of palliative care at the end of life, particularly amongst people of colour, the disabled and the poor.  

Of the 500,000 people who die each year, 100,000 do not access the care they need. This number is skewed towards ethnic minorities and those who come from poorer backgrounds.  

There is much confusion and misinformation about what end-of-life care even is. Research conducted by Marie Curie shows that 1 in 5 people from an ethnic minority background believe Palliative Care is actually Euthanasia.  

We only need to look at what has happened around the world when the ‘right to die’ becomes a duty to die. Even with the best of intentions, other jurisdictions show us that safeguards rapidly deteriorate and those who are already vulnerable become even more so.  

I worry that the way in which this bill is being handled - rushed through, little time being given to properly chew over the profound consequences it may have - reflects the wider way we view death. 

By trying to provide a ‘choice’ for a certain group of people, the consequence will be taking away real choice from those who already have little. 

Yet we know that for those who do access it, palliative care can be hugely effective in improving their quality of life, and for some, they can even outlive their prognosis. During Ash Wednesday’s service, I met an elderly gentleman who was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2019. He was told he had five months to live. He described every day of his six-year survival since as a ‘miracle’, his eyes filled with evident joy.  

Such a blessing stands in stark contrast to the lonely final days of my 96-year-old great grandmother. She was suddenly taken ill during the Covid-19 pandemic and was frantically rushed to a hospital. Amidst the chaos, exasperated by the restrictions against seeing family that were in place at the time, I distinctly remember confused conversations about placing her in a care home for her final days. It was clear she needed a lot of specialist attention, more than our family could provide ourselves.  As she was discharged to stay with our aunt, she never did reach that care home, as she died at home. She was buried in our local cemetery, with our family watching on Zoom.  

My final memory of my great-grandmother will be the FaceTime call we shared when she was taken to hospital, with the poor data connection and shaky picture. I am so grateful for the few family members who were able to be by her side when she died, but I’ve often wondered whether she fully received the care she actually needed during those final days, in the way she needed it.  

What my great-grandmother didn’t have a lot of at the end of her life was time.  

That’s also true for this bill. Concerns have been raised that only five hours of debate were given to this Bill in the chamber, comparatively short for a change in the law of this magnitude.  

I worry that the way in which this bill is being handled- rushed through, little time being given to properly chew over the profound consequences it may have- reflects the wider way we view death.  

Do we view death - and indeed the dying- as something to be shoved to one side, not spoken about in the hopes we can avoid its impact? Or do we view death as an important moment to review who and what matters most in life?  

Perhaps for some, the fact that Christians devote a period of 40 days to dwell on death may be one of the mysteries of faith. However, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea after all.  Death may bring with it fear, grief and pain and so we tend to avoid it. But do we risk missing out on much more? As we head into Easter, the cross still serves as a powerful reminder that, especially in death, Hope can be found, that Good has triumphed over evil, and Light shines even in the darkest of places.  

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