Des Kelly: Save all your prayers for West Ham with boss Avram Grant absent

18 September 2010 13:54
Unsurprisingly, I have no idea who God supports, but I imagine by now he must be ready to call upon the full Old Testament menu of locusts, boils, floods and hellfire if he happens to be a West Ham fan. [LNB]The Hammers are bottom of the Premier League, blessed with no points, no goals away from home and, prior to today's fixtures, no obvious clue as to how they might redeem themselves. [LNB]They now have no manager either for a crucial game at Stoke City because Avram Grant has decided to honour the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur instead. [LNB] Staying away: Avram Grant won't be at the Britannia Stadium this afternoon[LNB] It has not been a decision Grant has taken lightly. He even wrestled with the idea of making the pilgrimage to the Britannia Stadium while still trying to adhere to the restrictions of the Jewish Day Of Atonement. [LNB]Grant considered travelling up the night before, praying earnestly, and then taking his seat at the ground without communicating with the squad, trying to motivate the players or showing any signs of enjoyment whatsoever. [LNB]DES KELLY ON TWITTERFollow the Sportsmail columnist HERE[LNB]So, pretty much the same as most weeks, then. Having realised the illogicality of this, he finally elected to stay away from the game. [LNB]Before you accuse me of mocking Grant's religion and start firing in emails peppered with words like 'smite', quoting how 'Jeremiah-begat- Zachariah' and so on, allow me to point out that I entirely respect the manager's decision. It is his religion and it is his choice. He is not, as he says himself, a particularly observant Jew, but he feels the need to honour the Day of Atonement for his late family and 'thousands of years of tradition'. [LNB]Yes, it is his job to manage a football club, but I would no more object to him missing a game for Yom Kippur than I would if a Christian decided to skip a Sky Sports Super Sunday on Christmas Day. [LNB]Of course, Grant is not the only sports figure to wrestle with such religious fixture clashes. Scotland rugby player Euan Murray announced last year that he would no longer play on Sundays in order to honour the Christian Sabbath. [LNB]The BBC TV reporter Dan Walker doesn't work on Sundays for the same reason. [LNB]Again, these are perfectly acceptable positions to adopt, although they seem to suggest flawed career advice somewhere along the way. [LNB]Working in sport and then ruling out half the weekend on religious grounds is akin to being a haemophiliac knife thrower's assistant. It is only a matter of time before there is a problem. [LNB]Where we do part company on all of this, however, is on the notion that some higher power is watching over us all armed with a list of petty regulations, ready to penalise any transgressions on timing or encroachment like some celestial Howard Webb. [LNB] Hammer blow: West Ham will also be missing on loan Israel defender Tal Ben Haim for the trip to Stoke[LNB]I should point out here that I am not one of these 'atheist extremists' everyone appears to be worried about right now. [LNB]I was born, raised and educated as a Catholic, although I admit my relationship with religion has become more tangential through the years. [LNB]As far as my relationship with God goes, I'm pretty much down to Christmas, Easter and bouts of extreme turbulence on any aircraft journey. [LNB]I don't go to confession very much these days, either, in case the guy on the other side of the booth has more to get off his chest than me. [LNB]But I do have a vague belief that something might be out there and I understand the comfort religion brings to many. [LNB]I just don't subscribe to the idea that a Supreme Being, burdened with wars, murder, famine, natural disasters and so on, is likely to be bothered about Earthly trivia, like timetables or fixture lists. Oddly enough, it was a visit to Jerusalem that convinced me of this. I thought the Holy Land would be enlightening, and it was, but in more ways than I expected. [LNB]The Old City is split into four; the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters in a densely historic area just a third of a square mile across. [LNB]One morning I was standing by the Western ('Wailing') Wall in the Jewish quadrant when a woman tugged at my sleeve. 'Are you American and are you Jewish?' she asked. I was not overly keen to volunteer this information to a stranger, particularly on my second day in the Middle East. But after more tugging, I answered 'no and no' because she was clearly in distress. [LNB]She said an English-speaking non-Jew would do, and proceeded to drag me towards an apartment just off the main plaza where her husband needed help. [LNB]Not being a complete idiot, I knew following her was a risk. But she was tearful and I figured I'd take her in good faith. Besides, if she was that accomplished an actress she deserved the camera and the shekels I had on me. [LNB]My companion stood outside the door as I went inside. I found a man lying on the bed, groaning. The curtains were drawn, but all the lights were blazing. [LNB]'Are you OK? Do you need a doctor?' I asked, thinking he was ill. [LNB] Last word: Grant talks to Robert Green in training yesterday[LNB]'Thank God you're here,' he said. [LNB]'No, I just need you to turn off that switch on the wall. Our lights are on a timer in our Manhattan home, but we've rented this place and I haven't slept a wink. We're Jewish and we can't touch the electricity on the Sabbath because it is "work".' [LNB]So that was it. I said 'Let there be dark', flicked off the switch and suggested he might consider converting from Judaism to Catholicism, where only the guilt keeps you awake. And I left him chuckling. [LNB]But to me it summed up the absurdity of it all. In Jerusalem, stand in one quarter and it is a sin to turn off a light at the wrong time. Walk a couple of yards in another direction and you're a heretic if you eat a burger on a Friday. [LNB]Step a few paces on and you're considered in league with the devil if you eat that quarter pounder with your left hand. And we'd best not even mention pork. [LNB]Hold all these conflicting and seemingly arbitrary tenets of faith directly up against one another in the same place and it is easy to see them as illogical, man-made superstitions. [LNB]Strip away those 'thousands of years of tradition' and all religions are essentially the same - only with different holidays. [LNB]Don't write in to lecture me on why I am 'wrong' here. I'm absolutely sure I am. [LNB]The trouble is, every religion thinks it is right, although it is worth remembering the Egyptians used to worship cats and those Scandinavian Gods are mostly found in Marvel Comics these days. [LNB]Believe what you will, I say. It's your choice. And just as it is absolutely right we should be tolerant of Grant for putting religion ahead of his job today, it is also right that we should be tolerant of those who wonder whether it is worthwhile. [LNB]Either way, I suspect he will have a lot of time to pray soon.[LNB] Silence... Monty at workIf life were fair, Colin Montgomerie would have discovered that he is supremely gifted at something other than golf. [LNB]Quiet please: European captain Montgomerie[LNB]He would have found a career in an environment where silence was absolute. [LNB]Not a library - far too noisy - but deep space, perhaps. Out on a golf course people have a terribly inconvenient habit of whispering, coughing or even breathing at times. [LNB]The trouble is Montgomerie is cursed with acute levels of concentration that can only survive in the kind of hush brain surgeons, bomb disposal experts or Trappist monks would never dare to expect. [LNB]I remember waiting to interview him at the Scottish Open. He was maybe 70 yards away with his back to me on the practice tee. [LNB]But in mid-swing he stopped, said 'I'll be a while yet' and then continued the follow through to complete his drive. Somehow - sonar perhaps - he knew I was there. [LNB]This extra sensory perception and awareness of every sniff and splutter around him has to be part of the explanation why he hasn't won a major. [LNB]So when I read the story that Monty has had Europe's Ryder Cup dressing room at Celtic Manor sound-proofed so the Americans could not listen to his conversations, I had to laugh. [LNB]Monty has had it soundproofed to keep the noise out, not to keep it in. [LNB]Sssh![LNB] A load of old Bull, DavidDavid Coulthard mounted a spirited defence of error-strewn Sebastian Vettel the other week. [LNB]Despite the Red Bull driver's recent series of mishaps, Coulthard felt the German's clumsy crash into Jenson Button in Belgium, plus the catastrophic cock-ups in Turkey and Hungary, were 'understandable'. [LNB]Others argue Vettel has been rattled by the backlash of his feud with Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, but Coulthard said: 'It is not about pressure.' [LNB]He even accused McLaren of fanning the flames of this theory and said boss Martin Whitmarsh was 'ratcheting up the pressure' for his own ends. [LNB] A load of old Bull: F1 pundit Coulthard acts as a consultant for his former team[LNB]So I was intrigued this week to read what Coulthard said about Lewis Hamilton's crash at Monza in similar circumstances. [LNB]The Scot said: 'It will be niggling at him. He will feel he has let the team down, let himself down and potentially cost himself the title.' [LNB]Clearly loathe to ratchet up the pressure himself, Couthard added the Red Bull car was the best equipped and Red Bull driver Webber would win the title. [LNB]In fact, the piece was so interesting I read it all the way through to the final paragraph, which said: 'Couthard is writing on behalf of Red Bull Racing F1, for whom he acts as a consultant.' [LNB]  Grant confirms that he will miss Stoke clash to observe Yom KippurSportsmail on Twitter: Follow regular updates from our team of writers [LNB]  

Source: Daily_Mail