Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish comes under attack from a pitch invader during last Sunday’s derby against Birmingham City at St Andrew’s. Grealish’s winning goal was a fitting response to the act, but the familiarity of what happened is itself a cause for worry. The same goes for stewards, staff and other fans, but pitch invasions — especially last weekend’s example — are a particularly aggressive form of trespassing. After all, nothing so closely matches the divided and fraught political rhetoric of our time as football tribalism. It would therefore be foolish to ignore the flickering of the pilot light that football has always been for our society.

Source: Irish Examiner March 12, 2019 06:00 UTC