Fabrice Muamba

Fabrice Muamba's heart attack during Bolton's FA Cup trip to Tottenham Hotspur shocked not only the fans in White Hart Lane, but everyone across the footballing world. The 23 year Congolese born midfielder was worked on immediately after collapsing face down by both the Bolton and Tottenham medical teams. The players closest to Muamba after his collapse may have saved his life with their frantic arm waving to get medics to his aid immediately. There was real grief and concern on all the players faces as the doctors tried to revive the former England U21 International in the middle of the pitch. According to Bolton owner Eddie Davies "He was a full hour without breathing or his heart working. 20 minutes on the pitch, 20 minutes in the ambulance and 20 minutes in the hospital before they got his heart working," 

At the time of writing, Muamba has shown signs of recovery and has held brief conversations with Doctors, friends and family from his bed in the Intensive Care Unit at the London Chest Hospital. His status, although still very serious is no longer considered 'critical'. Bolton Wanderers Manager, Owen Coyle and the club Chairman, Phil Gartside, and club Captain, Kevin Davies,  have all been to visit the stricken midfielder amongst many other family members and friends, including Jay Defoe from Saturday's opponents, Spurs. There has been a huge outpouring of good will and messages of encouragement from all across the footballing world from the players of Real Madrid, who wore special shirts, to ex-teammate Jack Whilshere's tweets of support. The past few days have also shown the best in football support. The crowd at White Hart Lane, there to be entertained by an afternoon of quarter final FA Cup football saw the game and atmosphere change in a split second when the big midfielder went down dramatically before half time.

There was a hush that instantly engulfed the fans as soon as they realised a man was down and in trouble. What happened next though was truly wonderful. The fans, unlike the spectators at home watching on TV could see directly what was happening on the field and began to cheer Muamba's name as the medical staff used a defibrillator to try and resuscitate the Bolton man. There were spontaneous claps and cheers as the crowd tried to play their part in helping save a dying mans life. Both sets of supporters made the whole world of football proud with that display of solidarity and respect. "FABRICE MUAMBA, FABRICE MUAMBA, FABRICE MUAMBA."

The game was correctly postponed by referee Howard Webb who officiated the situation with calm and clarity. The hash tag #prayforMuamba was trending across Twitter within hours of his collapse and many will believe that those prayers and messages of love and support helped Muamba regain consciousness and will continue to help him to a full recovery. To help the Bolton fans to come to terms with this shocking situation the club was also due to open up the Chairman's Suite at the Reebok Stadium between 1830-2100 GMT on Tuesday to allow time for reflection and prayer. Never in my lifetime has religion and the power of prayer been so openly acknowledged in the world of football. So often we see players cross themselves before stepping beyond the white line, or pointing to the heavens a la Frank Lampard, but it's never considered a particularily religious game by it's fans or players. Soccer is of course entwined with religion but not normally with English players. It's normally the foreign players who show their religious beliefs through celebrations

-Newcastle United' s Senegalese forwards Ba and Cisse touch thier heads to the turf to celebrate goals
-Chelsea's Spainish forward Fernando Torres crosses his heart and head after goals (more often at Liverpool than Chelsea)
-Manchester United's Mexican forward Javier Hernandez has a praying routine on the half-way line before games that raised more than a few eyebrows in England the first time he did it.

-Chelsea/Arsenal Israeli midfielder Yossi Benayaoun also practices some of his religious habits on the football pitch. 

So it's pretty common to see players showing movements, and hand gestures to signify what 'team' they're on religiously, but not so much the clubs fans.  Barcelona have a small parish in the bowels of the Camp Nou which is open to supporters and some clubs even have their whole stadiums named after religious buildings. The home of Athletic Bilbao is San Mames aka 'The Catedral'.  There are also some examples of football fans clearly showing their support to a certain religion like the Spurs fans calling themselves and proudly chanting "YIDS".  Celtic and Rangers supporters have been well documented with the beliefs of their teams religious backgrounds too often resulting in violence and rioting. Never has a generalized outpouring of prayer and religious goodwill been shared by so many in the footballing world.  I'm speculating, but it's not unrealistic to presume that so many of the people tweeting and facebooking the message 'Prayer for Muamba' don't actually go to, or belong to, a Church, Synagogue, Mosque or any other place of worship, more often than not the stadium they go to every Saturday is their place of worship, even if it's not called 'The Catedral' and the players on the pitch are the demi-gods and saviours and the people around them are the congregation.

Not being a religious man myself doesn't mean that I'm belittling all the prayers that have gone out to 'help' Fabrice Muamba to a full recovery (hopefully) but in reality the real difference makers are the medics that tended to him on the pitch and the doctors at London's Chest Hospital.  I suppose when there's nothing you can do to help, praying makes you feel connected to the efforts of the people that can actually affect the situation, and all I know is that no one wants to see another incident like the tragic death of Antonio Puerta 2007 during a game for Sevilla in Spain's La Liga


Get well soon Fabrice.