I was recently attending the Cup Final between Manchester City and Chelsea. I always try to obtain a seat in the Bobby Moore Suite as it is so close to the half way line and it probably has the best view of the game. It is usual just before the kick off for the hymn ‘Abide with Me’ to be sung. Imagine my surprise where accompanying the military band there appeared 40 to 50 people in Bradford City kit. I thought for a moment that one or both teams had been replaced by Bradford. Instead it was a choir put together by Radio Leeds who were to sing the ‘anthem’. “Abide with Me” is a Christian hymn by British Anglican cleric Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) and is a prayer for God to stay with the speaker throughout life and death. It was written by Lyte in 1847 as he was dying from tuberculosis. It is most often sung to the tune “Eventide” by the English organist William Henry Monk (1823-1889). Indeed it has been adopted by military groups and in particular the ANZAC forces.
The belief is that when Lyte felt his own end approaching at the age of 54 as he developed tuberculosis he recalled the lines he had written so many years before in County Wexford. The Biblical link for the hymn is Luke 24:29 in which the disciples asked Jesus to abide with them “for it is towards evening and the day is spent”. The permanent verse draws on Corinthians 15:55 “On death where is my strength? O grave, when is the victory”.
This year the Bradford choir led admirably by an older gentleman were superb and he is captured by the television who focused on people of all ages.
It is well worthy of the TV coverage. There is a man with a palm on his heart, a conventional neutral singing correctly and a City fan waving a flag.
I observe the rendition of the hymn every year I attend the game at Wembley. I am fascinated by what people are thinking when the hymn is being sung. In my case the victims of the Second World War and particularly the Channel Islands, the conflict in the Falklands and elsewhere. My thoughts after the game were to the vast array of the people at the game and elsewhere and the width of their thoughts.
Space prevents me expanding this section further.
After the game I bumped into the people in the choir and it seems the impetus for the choir is the Bradford Fire and in particular the internationally renowned Burns Unit in Bradford. A few weeks before I had been reminded about the fire at the last game of Bradford’s season at Exeter. At the Bradford end there was a prominent flag, Lincolnshire Bantams in memory of the people who died or were injured on the day of the disaster.
Of course there have been many footballs tragedies; the Hillsborough tragedy was only four years later. What Abide with Me does is to bring to everyone’s attention the various tragedies in our lives. It is certainly hoped that the Bradford Choir is hugely successful in its money raising activities.
My final thought was to the people of Bradford who looked after many of the children evacuated from Guernsey at the beginning of the Second World War and who were initially housed at Eastbrook Hall Church. This sentiment applies to all families who looked after people evacuated from their homes during hostilities.
Raymond Ashton