In his article titled "Professional Soccer Was My God," former pro soccer player Gavin Peacock writes:

I was never going to be tall, so my dad (who was also a pro soccer player) would take me into our backyard in Southeast London and teach me how to quickly switch directions with the soccer ball at my feet. "The big guys won't be able to catch you!" he said. For hours I would practice turning to the left and right, dribbling in and out of cones, spinning this way and that. My dad was right: the art of turning served me well. Many of the goals I scored in the years to come were a result of that lesson.

At age 16, I left school and signed a professional contract with [English] Premier League Queens Park Rangers (QPR). I had achieved the goal—and I wasn't really happy. I was playing for the England Youth National Team, and it wasn't long before I broke into the starting eleven at QPR. But I was an insecure young man in the cutthroat world of professional sport. Soccer was my god. If I played well on a Saturday I was high, if I played poorly I was low. My sense of well-being depended entirely on my performance. I soon realized that achieving the goal wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Then, when I was 18, God intervened in my life. I was still struggling to find purpose, so I decided to attend a local church. I don't remember what the minister preached on, but afterward he invited me to his house, where he and his wife hosted a weekly youth Bible study. I rolled up in the car I had bought, a 1980s icon, the Ford Escort XR3i. Yet when they spoke about Jesus, they displayed a life and joy that I did not have. They talked about sin as if it had consequence and about God as if they knew him.

I decided to return to the Bible study the following week and the next, and I began to hear the gospel for the first time. I realized that my biggest problem wasn't whether I met the disapproval of a 20,000-strong crowd on Saturday; my biggest problem was my sin and the disapproval of almighty God. I realized that the biggest obstacle to happiness was that soccer was king instead of Jesus, who provided a perfect righteousness for me. Over time, my eyes were opened through that Sunday meeting, and I turned, repented, and believed the gospel. My heart still burned for soccer, but it burned for Christ more.

At the age of 35, Peacock retired after playing for QPR, Chelsea, and Newcastle United, but the schoolboy dream was over. He currently serves as a pastor in Canada. He concludes, "All those years ago, my earthly father taught me the art of turning, but it was my heavenly Father who turned me first to Christ and then helped me turn others to Christ by preaching his gospel."