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Eureka-kaka-ka

Crispin Thomas

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 back in them so called good old days
Jimmy Hill lifted that maximum wage
everybody threatened that the future looked bleak
players went from twenty to a hundred quid a week
Cloughie got Francis for under a million
how long before we get a player worth a billion ?

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 where did all the gate money go back when
crowds of sixty thousand were common place then?
only ten bob woud get you in a seat
sixpence or one and six to stand upon your feet
big bags of cash at the old turnstiles
directors and owners with moustaches and smiles
sometimes you wonder who was there to clock it
and players ended up with little in their pocket

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 sitting with the players on the bus or on the train
something that none of us will ever see again
none of them had bikes or big flash cars
but they were still regarded as big superstars
everything’s relevant that’s what they say
greed and reality’s hitting home today

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 inflation and craziness that’s the way it seems
still feels to me like a really bad dream
i’d love to be invisible I’d love to be the ball
I’d love to be a fly on the dressing room wall
salary discussions where’s it gonna stop
sure must be funny when you reach the top

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 some say it’s just like the movies and pop
but this is our sport so where’s it gonna stop
capital insanity nothing stays the same
globalisation of the pawns in the game
Kaka and Robinho the names roll on
where oh where has the People’s Game gone?

© Crispin Thomas 2008

Notes

I know it was cheap to get in then, but with all those 60,000,70,000 and 80,000 crowds in the 50s and 60s and earlier with players on rubbish wages, I always wanted to know …where did all the money go? It must have been even more ‘iffy’ in Victorian times with all those huge crowds. if you’ve ever examined the calculating technological mechanism of an old 1890s turnstile up close , (we’ve still got one at Forest Green Rovers) it invites questioning !! Jimmy Hill is saying today, that there’s nothng wrong and that big wages reflect the big paying public ? But did the players see any of it reflected in their pay back then ? Halcyon days indeed! As a contrast, I worked many times with Roy Bentley (Chelsea’s championship winnng captain of 54/55) and he used to tell the kids in our sessions, about one of the big perks every other week. They were allowed( as players) to go round the track at Stamford Bridge on a Monday morning and pick up the pennies ,three-penny bits and sixpences that had missed the St John’s Ambulance band collection blanket .The blanket used to be carried around before a game , and people would throw money in it. It’s not us today the punters, chucking the money now ..or is it?

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/eureka-kaka-ka/