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Useless Striker RIP

Peter Goulding

Monday, March 15th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 They say that good strikers can turn on a sixpence,
And trouble the keeper from long or short distance,
And nowadays they must be eager and speedy,
Conditioned by coaches to be rather greedy.
Good strikers, they say, head the ball with precision,
Possessing, by instinct, immaculate vision.
Back to the goal, they can swivel with smile,
And normally don’t miss the goal by a mile.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 But he couldn’t turn on a bag full of change,
And troubled no keeper, whatever the range.
Outsprinted he was by his daughter’s pet snail.
Whatever he tried, he’d invariably fail.
He’d squeeze his eyes shut when receiving high passes,
As blind as a myopic mole in dark glasses.
He’d swivel with the speed of a luxury liner
And all of his efforts just headed for China.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 And so, when he died, they collected his ashes,
And brought him with sorrow and tearful eyelashes
To the ground where he’d proved so intensely capricious
And placed his remains [in respect of his wishes]
On the penalty spot, while they said a short prayer,
As the strengthening breeze gambolled up in the air.
Then, as they turned back to the funeral car,
The wind blew the ashes right over the bar.

© Peter Goulding 15th March 2004

Notes

Unashamedly versified from a [probably] apocryphal story in Ken Ferris’s “Football Fanatic”

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/useless-striker-rip/