Play is one of the themes of this year’s ‘small Park BIG RUN’. Play is an important part of discovery, socialisation and wellbeing in our formative years. Many of us continue to engage in play in various forms as adults because it continues to provide for us in the same way when as children playing was so important. Play is about fun, informality, something which isn’t about duty or necessity, an activity which nourishes us and our relationships.
3-3 Palestine is a simple football activity open to anyone registered for SPBR – all ages and no previous football experience needed! Come and find the “3-3 Palestine” volunteers on the day, take the challenge as you complete the SPBR course and get a certificate and badge.
Play can take many forms such as cultural and creative activity, imagination games and sport. Sport is a significant part of how we enjoy “play” throughout our lives and football continues to dominate as the sport which most people – children and adults – play.
It is a simple game, requiring just something to kick and a space to kick it in. It is also a uniting force; as a global game, anyone having a kickabout will know that elsewhere around the world millions of others are doing the same.
Whichever ways we might choose to engage in football – as participants, as spectators, as campaigners – we have so much potential to raise our awareness of and connect with our sisters and brothers in Palestine.
As participants, we feel how the exercise of playing football can not only lift the mood and improve our sense of wellbeing, but significantly also how the engagement in a sport can be a vital distraction, allowing us to focus on something apart from our troubles. We all deserve moments of joy and peace, however fleeting. Chasing a ball or playing with others can offer us that.
How much more vital this is for Palestinian youngsters whose day to day reality is so traumatic. Here is a link to a short article on that theme: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/06/gaza-boys-turn-football-forget-moment-war and another about football used as therapy to help in the healing work with Palestinian children: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/10/8/how-football-brings-joy-and-helps-heal-palestinian-children-in-qatar
As spectators, we can enjoy sport as part of a community. We can identify with a badge, share the same chants and songs together and our mutual understanding helps us to bear the games lost and enjoy sweeter victories. We can watch as the people who represent us bring us recognition and pride, even when we are far from experiencing that ourselves.
The Palestinian diaspora plays a large role in the representative Palestinian teams, given the huge obstacles that Palestinians based in the illegally occupied West Bank and the Gaza strip have faced in keeping involved in competitive football over the recent decades. The continued functioning of representative teams is a remarkable achievement in itself. And when teams make their mark on the world’s stages, this can provide a defiant message of survival of a people whose identity is a continuing battle.
This year the Palestine men’s football team has gone the furthest ever in its history in the football World Cup qualification process. This brings a profile to the Palestinian state as a recognised entity – it is worth noting that the world governing body of football FIFA in spite of its flaws, has recognised the state of Palestine – and as a culture in a way that can resonate with people not otherwise engaged in Palestine solidarity. You can keep in touch with the progress of the team here: https://footballpalestine.com
While the Under 20’s Women’s football team recently declared ‘We played for Gaza’ as they won the West Asian Football Federation title. Read about it here: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2597092/sport
And sport is an incredible tool for campaigning. At elite levels fans can work as one community to coordinate huge displays of solidarity with oppressed communities. You can read on this thread how crowds at football clubs all over the world use their combined presence to show the people of Palestine that they are not forgotten:
At grassroots level, community sporting events – football tournaments are a common example – are such an effective way of getting people together who may initially just want to come and play but then engage in so much more – learning, meeting activists, raising money, becoming involved themselves. Just think of all the things that ‘small park BIG RUN’ has achieved based on the nominally simple concept of an organised run around a neighbourhood park.
Even in the most difficult times, sometimes especially in those times the deep rooted and significant power of football – as a participatory activity, a spectator sport and a campaigning tool – belies its simplicity as a form of play.
Photo: Kev Dunnington
