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Once I watched a match on CEEFAX

mark merriman

Friday, August 9th, 2013

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Two weeks in the Dordogne in ’96
and we faced an agonising wait
to find out the results in the paper:
beaming smiles and whoops of joy
greeted the news that emergency striker
Murray’s volley had stolen the points for Town.
Some years later I watched a match on CEEFAX:
no goals each as I recall.
Pacing the joint in Portugal
it was CEEFAX again:
Northampton 1 Town 1 – Roberts pen;
point away always satisfactory.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Now technology rules.
Lounging around a Lanzarote cafe
watching the main match on Al Jazeera
with regular updates from boys’ Smartphones:
chances made and missed;
yellow cards brandished;
woodwork struck;
solitary goal conceded as
Swindon slump to opening day defeat.
No need for CEEFAX now.
Yet I still yearn for the
halcyon days of the Dordogne:
anticipation and adrenaline of not knowing.
Something missing now.

© mark merriman september 2004

Notes

Having just returned from holiday in Lanzarote my thoughts turned to the many times I have been abroad and was desperate to find out the Swindon score.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/once-i-watched-a-match-on-ceefax/