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Roy and Ray

Alex Saynor

Wednesday, September 13th, 2017

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 With those air miles, Roy, you could tour the moons of Jupiter.
Ensure the planets are in correct formation,
no-one stepping beyond their sphere.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Your Wikipedia page has crashed my computer
somewhere between Gravesend and Neuchȃtel
and I’m back to pen and paper

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 to consider the passage of Europa,
the year Roy and Ray were in its orbit
four hundred years after Simon Marius.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Now the Simon we drink to is Simon Davies
and Europa Passage a side-street in Hamburg.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Roy, Grasshopper of Zürich: one among many.
Ray, you know your exits on the Orbital Motorway:

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 hornets, eagles, bees near a depleted cottage.
Five spells in the dark and the brightest of suns still ahead.

Notes

Welcome back to a much maligned management duo! This was originally written in anticipation of the 2014 World Cup, but seems to have renewed relevance now as Roy and Ray are set to embark on another (perhaps their last?) chapter, this time at Roy’s hometown club – and one Ray’s coached at before (hence the ‘eagles’ reference) – Crystal Palace.

Their success in keeping Fulham up in 2008 before leading us to the Europa League Final in Hamburg was phenomenal, and I think should overshadow some of their higher profile slip ups; almost obsessive attention to tactical detail could be considered predictable, but it therefore created room for surprise – best wishes to Roy and Ray!

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/roy-and-ray-2/