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“What Might Have Been”

Dulwich Poet

Friday, January 24th, 2014

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Was tonight the peak of your career
Not even old enough to buy a beer
FA Youth Cup at The Den
Never to grace a Pro ground again.
Chance of penalty glory
Missed and froze
That’s how the fickle hand
Of football fate goes.
Millwall’s lion cubs
Were two nil up
But sharper Blades pulled it back
For penalties in the Cup.
It’s a good night
To be a young Blade
Another round or two
Some will have it made.
A rich contract
Set up for life
Rest on the scrapheap
On the dole and strife.
One or two might stay in the game
Non-League at Champion Hill
If there’s the belief
Or even the will.
The alternative’s a postman
Pushing bills through your door
Dreaming of what might have been
You know the score.
Watching ‘Match of the Day’
Thinking ‘That could have been me’
As you play Sunday pub league
With a big beer belly.

Notes

(I saw Millwall draw 2-2 with Sheffield United tonight, after extra time, in the 4th round of the FA Youth Cup. Millwall lost 8-7 on penalties. Very few of the players on the field will end up making a career as professional footballers, some of them will become semi-professional, playing various levels of non-league. The rest…who knows?)

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/what-might-have-been/