Churches across England enjoyed record attendances this morning ahead of today’s Englands game against Germany in the World Cup. Football fans gathered in their thousands at their local parish churches to pray, to an authority higher than FIFA, that England’s perennial underachievers beat those German non-believers in the Free State stadium in South Africa. “We’ve had a better turnout today than at Christmas Mass and Palm Sunday put together. God bless the World Cup,” commented Rev. Thomas Pickering of Godalming parish church, in Surrey.

Despite the odd Hillsborough-esque crowd surges outside some churches, most dioceses had anticipated the upswing in attendance following the announcement of the fixture and had made the necessary arrangements accordingly. “We screwed down the pews, so nobody could pick them up and throw them around, and we got in a few more boxes of cheap red wine for the blessing too,” commented Rev. Roland Stevens of Braiseworth parish church in Suffolk. “To lift people’s spirits, we even stuck renditions of ‘Land of hope and glory’, and ‘There were ten German bombers in the air’ onto the hymn sheet for this week’s service,” added Rev. Stevens with a cheerful smile.

It seems that the fixture may have even inspired a whole new generation of christian hoards. One first time church go-er told Cultsha before a service at St Pancras parish church in North London: “When I’m done with this God nonsense, I’m gonna swing via Morrisons and pick me up a 24 pack of Carling, a white, plastic picnic table and a cheap hoover. Then before the game starts I’m gonna whack the vaccuum into turbo mode to replicate the sound of the vuvuzelas, and start smashing the new garden furniture over my chidren.’

While the link in England between football and religion has always been tenuous at best, in many Latin countries this is not the case. While England’s footballers see China Whites as their church and pray not to the almighty, but upon young girls, footballers from the Latin world are often deeply religious figures and are eternally thankful for the gift God has given them. ”The only time religion and football crossed paths in the English game it ended in disaster, with former England manager Glenn Hoddle telling disabilists that they ‘had it coming’ for being Arsenal supporters in a past life,” commented Harry Redknapp.