Football, beer, and ontological arguments with St Andrews’ Interfaith Football League

Long before attracting golfers and Oxbridge rejects, St Andrews once drew religious pilgrims from far and wide. Dotted around the town’s ruins and amongst its many churches, the theological legacy of St Andrews is hard to ignore. If you’re looking for God in 21st-century St Andrews, however, the football pitch might just be the place. 

“Everyone thought it was a joke, but I was actually serious,” said Noah Getz, founder of Interfaith Football League, who now pursues a career in sports consulting. While at St Andrews, he started the league to bring the town’s faith societies together to battle it out on the pitch.

Interfaith football began with a game between Jewish Society (JSoc) and St Andrews Muslim Students’ Association (STAMSA). “We lost that game of football, but that wasn't what it was about. It was about meeting them and seeing that actually, we were ridiculously similar,” Getz explained. “We're both weird faith societies [at] a tiny university in Scotland.”

After the success of the first match, Getz began his campaign to start a league rivalling the Premier League. "I just went around asking, ‘Do you want to be involved?’” Getz recalled. “I think we got seven in the end.” In addition to six societies from St Andrews, Getz even got Dundee’s Catholic Soc on board, which would come in on the bus every Tuesday night.

With teams lined up, Getz was given £80 from the Sports Centre to “go get a trophy made from the cobbler.” That trophy was lifted by Hindu Soc, who won the League’s first edition. “I think it's in a flat somewhere now, maybe [in] Saint Storage,” Getz said.

For the league’s final game, Getz’s efforts to draw supporters involved drones, Phil Collins, and 3.5 pints.  Using gameplay footage from the first few matches, Getz put his cinematography to work. “It looked really slow. I was like, this has to be intense. I put Phil Collins in the back, and I sped everyone up to 1.5 [speed] on the editing software,” Getz recalled. “It looked like the Premier League.”

Partnering with St Andrews United Football Club, Getz organised finals with food and the cheapest beer in town to raise money for the club’s local football program. “I wasn’t sure with a bunch of faith people if we would sell beer, but we sold a lot of beer,” Getz said. Nearing 250 spectators, Getz recalls the finals being “such a funny party with all different faith groups playing football and lots of alcohol.”

At halftime, Getz even ran a crossbar challenge for the crowd — won by University Chaplain Revd Dr Donald McEwan. “He ran for it, and I thought, no way,” Getz said. “He was the first person to do it, but he went and he pinged it. It went right off the crossbar.”

This environment was and remains crucial to interfaith football. “Sports can be pretty competitive. That atmosphere can be quite acetic,” Getz explained. With the Interfaith League, however, it’s about coming face-to-face and getting to know one another.

“I remember talking to the STAMSA guys about the ontological argument for God and all these theological ideas that you only have time to read about when you're a student,” Getz said. 

Beyond just ontological arguments, interfaith football today remains committed to “bridging gaps between communities, overcoming prejudices, and having actual communication,” explained Lucie Asseo, head organiser for Interfaith Football this year. 

“If we have an interfaith Shabbat dinner, there’s maybe not going to be as many students from other faiths,” Asseo explained. “Whereas football [is] a good way to get people together. Football works really well because it’s a really universal sport.” 

Marc McGettigan, captain of Catholic Society’s football team, described a similar journey: “It started off just being about the football for me. Now, with organising the team, I have a better understanding. It really does allow for good connection[s] between the societies [...] There isn’t that tension or strain that people might envision religious societies to have.”

“For me, it’s a way for people to see how open and welcoming the faith societies are. You don’t need to be involved in our faith to join,” McGettigan said. “Especially this year, I’ve seen so many first-years that have come in and really love playing with the team.”

McGettigan also described a new sense of “what’s possible in the space of interfaith.” 

“A lot of people here — studying philosophy, studying theology — are interested in faith,” Asseo said. For her, Interfaith is valuable in providing a space for people to explore faith through conversation and connection, distinct from explicitly religious practices. 

“We go to the pub together after,” she explained, “and it isn’t necessarily about talking about faith but about getting comfortable around one another.”