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UNITED NATIONS OF FOOTBALL

Stuart Butler

Monday, April 5th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 He was a working class boy from Camberley,
Did well at school and went to university,
To study for a lucrative career
As a mechanical engineer;
He travelled down the M4 corridor,
Researching west of Heathrow’s engine-roar,
Researching what he liked researching best,
Looking at steel and all its consequential stress,
When it explodes right on a programmed time,
Through a foot disturbing a subterranean mine;
But he met this girl, cultured, middle class and nice
Who showed him theatre, books, cinema and twice-
Weekly tantric sex – but what he liked doing best,
Better than all the recreational rest,
Was playing football in the Sunday League,
He played mid-field for the I.T.team,
Then had a few pints and then would try
To watch the football match on Sky,
But on this special day, March 21st.,
Nigel’s shot made the football burst –
“I missed a sitter in the first half Lucy,
I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me,
But when I scored, I hit it like a rocket,
It nearly took their goalie’s fingers out their socket,
It literally exploded into the net,
I held my arm aloft to celebrate.”

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 She lives in a corrugated shanty shack in Angola,
Never went to school, it was destroyed by UNITA,
So she hoes the ground and cuts the weeds from the desiccated soil,
And plants the seeds and nurtures the leaves in unremitting toil,
In a frantic bid to feed those increasing hungry mouths –
And so the village took on extra ground,
Another field to feed the hungry throng,
Who watched and waited as she went along,
Hoeing and weeding and slaking foliage thirst,
Until that eventful March 21st.,
When Nigel celebrated his most important goal,
While she scoured the crop field surface with a trowel,
And touched his steel case landmine band,
Which blew off her arm and her right hand.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Nigel had a few more pints and an alcoholic rest,
Then went to work on Monday to test
Steel and all its consequential stress,
Dreaming of the ball as it hit the back of the net,
But in Angola, she’d be better off if dead.

© Stuart Butler

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/united-nations-of-football/