This may be fanciful, but sometimes I see the missionary God as a class football winger, throwing endless patient crosses into the box.

And I sometimes see me as a particularly duff striker: often looking the wrong way, or…

Last week: guitar lesson. I got talking to my teacher. After the inevitable ‘Spinal Tap’ jokes, I worked out that he was a friend of Steve Evetts. Steve Evets is the lead actor in ‘Looking for Eric’- the man on…

For many years now I have had an unreasoning hero-worship of Eric Cantona. He is my favourite footballer of all time and more. When I managed a housing office in a past life, I even coded the alarm with his…