CYCLE SIX

1. HEATHEN SPORTS. From the Father of Rugby League to the Son of Rugby Union via the Mother of Association Football - a Heathen circle in which the Subheaven (relative to pseudo-Christianity) of the Father, the World of the Mother, and the Purgatory of the Son revolve in Presbyterian, Anglican, and Puritan fashion, with upper-, lower-, and middle-class implications.

2. FATHER AND SON. Formerly I would have regarded Rugby Union as relevant to the Father and Rugby League, by contrast, as relevant to the Son ... in a sort of upper-class/middle-class distinction. Now I realize, however, that Rugby League is closer or, rather, more attuned to the World ... of Association Football ... than (is) Rugby Union, pretty much like a father to a mother, and that, far from signifying a strictly purgatorial analogue, Rugby League is manifestly 'fundamentalist' in its soulful aggression and 'will to power' (through league competition). In fact, where Rugby Union is comparatively intellectual, as befitting its purgatorial aloofness from the World (of Association Football), Rugby League is emotional and therefore more symbolic, I have argued, of a subheavenly parallel. There is arguably more 'football' in Rugby League than in Rugby Union, which is an additional reason to conceive of it as existing in a closer relationship with Association Football.

3. ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL. Whereas Rugby Union is intellectual and Rugby League, by contrast, emotional, Association Football is manifestly wilful, or characterized by the will to live (score goals) in what is patently a worldly and, indeed, broadly feminine context. This is why I describe Association Football as of the Mother, since it corresponds to the Heathen fecundity of the World in the alacrity with which opposing teams go about their principal objective of scoring in their opponents' net, the parallel with sexual commerce only too apparent in this most popular of all sports, a sport commanding virtually universal respect ... despite its moral shortcomings! Frankly, there is nothing about Association Football which does not suggest a correlation with the World, and hence, by ethnic extrapolation, the sort of maternal fecundity more typical of Anglicanism, I would contend, than of any other heathenistic denomination. Certainly, Association Football is essentially an English game, unlike, say, Gaelic Football, which reflects a Catholic bias in its World-denying uprights, the goal (netting) itself likely to remain relatively virginal long after points have been scored between the uprights in what I can only conclude to be true Catholic fashion.

4. OBJECTIVE VIS-À-VIS SUBJECTIVE. Thus, in coming back to the heathenistic circle of 'Protestant' team sports, I maintain that both Rugby Union and Rugby League stand in an objectively masculine relationship to Association Football, like Puritanism and Presbyterianism vis-à-vis Anglicanism, and therefore like the Son and the Father in relation to the Mother, the latter of whom is alone feminine, and hence comparatively subjective. Just so, the netting of the soccer goal stands in a subjective, and therefore feminine, relationship to the 'open posts' of both types of rugby, albeit the objectivity of these latter games is divisible, so I contend, between the intellectual bias of Rugby Union for kicked goals/points between the posts, and the emotional bias of Rugby League for 'tries' beneath the bar separating the one post from the other, this latter akin to an indirect affirmation, from a male point of view, of the Earth (and thus of the World and/or Mother taken from behind).

5. SEXUAL CORRELATIONS. Note that in rugby (union as well as league) one can score 'tries' either side of the posts as well as between them. This would indicate to me that whilst it is perhaps preferable to score between them, and thus confirm an objective heterosexual disposition vis-à-vis the World, there is no rule against scoring either side of them (unlike in Association Football), and thus of effectively affirming a masturbatory correlation. In short, rugby players can be objectively heterosexual from the standpoint of either the Son (union) or the Father (league), but they can also be either homosexual (kicked goals between the posts) or masturbatory (tries either side of the posts), with, so I contend, Rugby Union edging it on the homosexual front, and Rugby League taking precedence on the masturbatory one.