More important than that

The late, great Bill Shankly was once asked if football was a matter of life or death for him. He famously replied that ‘it is more important than that’. Well, there has been much in this morning’s news about a football match to take place this evening between Armenia and Turkey in the old Ottoman capital of Bursa. The Turks are determined to lavish hospitality on their visitors and both countries wish to use the match for – entirely laudable – diplomatic purposes. I hope the local fans share their aims. Anyway, I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that one football match triggered a war that left over 6,000 people dead. It was a 1969 World Cup Qualifier between El Salvador and Honduras. Hours after the match, this morning’s Financial Times tells me, the borders between the two countries were closed, the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa was attacked by fighter aircraft and the two countries fought a 100-hour war. I doubt whether this was quite what Shankly had in mind, but it does make you think…