St. Thomas à Becket Foundation
Office : Holy Family Church,  226 Trelawney Avenue, Slough,  Berkshire.  SL3 7UD
Telephone: 01753-543770                                           e-mail : office@st.ThomasaBecket
registered charity 1062125/0
 

I have always found Easter to be a time of great joy and excitement. Usually because there are so
many family birthdays celebrated during the month of April.
More importantly, at this time of year we have a clearer picture as to who will win the Premiership and the FA Cup.  With Easter coming so early this year, it has left me a little disorientated with regards the climax of the football season.  As I write Manchester United who are currently at the summit of the Football League will have 7 League fixtures still to play following Easter Sunday. 

That is a lot of football and a lot of points to play for.
While United may be one of the top premiership clubs it is interesting to note that they lay 16th in the league following a survey conducted by the National Association of Disabled Supporters (NADS) which found that only Blackburn and Bolton had sufficient spaces for disabled supporters with Arsenal falling just short.

Chelsea, Spurs and Portsmouth fell embarrassingly short with just a
third of the required spaces.

With approximately 30,000 disabled supporters regularly attending matches in England, it looks as if football in general is putting up a poor show.  NADS had laid out their recommendations in their Accessible Stadia Guide in 2003, and these recommendations were endorsed by the Premier League and the Football Association, this makes the results even more shocking.
Listening to Radio Five Live, investigating the matter there were some very interesting responses from those clubs who failed to meet the criteria. 
 Equally remarkable were the views of a number of fans, one of whom was an able bodied supporter who felt that giving additional seats to wheelchair users was ‘unfair to the rest of us.’
When I heard this examination expressed it short-cut my memory to a view I was presented with regarding car parking provision for people with disabilities in a church car park within our own diocese:  ‘It’s not fair that able bodied people can’t park their car because the space is left for a disabled person who isn’t here!’  Unfortunately I do not have enough word space to relay verbatim the entire exchange of views; need less to say we parted ‘agreeing to differ.’ 

Fairness is a difficult thing to establish and measure.  What is fair for one individual is not for another; what one person considers right the other views as wrong.
Our moral outlook is often driven by our upbringing, culture, personal experiences and faith.  It is to the latter that I turned to for moral guidance and instruction of what is the right thing to do, and to our Lord himself, for I believe that he was a man that would argue till the cows come home, and would have raised an eyebrow or two had he phoned into the Radio 5 Live debate.
And so I enquired regarding this car parking matter:  “Lord” I asked, “should we really be expected to meet the requirement of the law regarding disability access to all our churches (and football grounds) especially when some of these buildings were erected in the 19 century and beyond?”

I listened attentively and our Lord presented these words to my heart through scripture and a learned friend of faith:
“Do you remember the man with the withered hand?”  he said.  “He was cured on the Sabbath.  Now strictly speaking I should not have healed that man on the Sabbath for according to the Law of Moses no work was to be carried out on this day of rest.  But how could I refuse someone who needed my help." 
         Would you refuse to help someone in need?
Remember ‘The Good Samaritan.’  Would you walk on the other side or would you cross the road and help the injured man, even if it meant breaking the law?   Ask yourself: ‘What are laws for?’  They are there to protect people.  Concerning your interest in football the laws are there to protect football and to protect the right to watch football. 

The Good Samaritan

“You always need to ask yourself and remind yourself of what the law is trying to achieve.

With this in mind remember that the gospel I give you asks you not only to try and fulfil the law but to enrich the law.  Particularly enriching the law for the dispossessed and disadvantaged in our world.  What people are being called upon to achieve with public buildings is to protect the rights of people with a disability to access these buildings.  What I need to be achieved for my church is to go that ‘extra mile’ and provide what educationalists call:  ‘Value Added’. 

No matter what the age of the building, football ground, or church, a Level Playing Field must be our goal!”
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