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Paradise Lost and Regained in 4 days

Stuart Butler

Saturday, September 4th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Just as Confusion sat enthroned upon the Tower of Babel,
So I sat in a bar named Paradise, at a formica table,
Watching Chelsea’s football match against the team from Brum,
Befuddled by the commentary which was oddly Norwegian;
And just as Satan left Hell for cold Chaos’ void,
So I too quickly quit the bar, not knowing if Swindon had failed
In their derby against Bristol City. Bored
And distracted, I avoided the score,
Football’s a curse just like the wounds of war
Far best not to know, the hols will all be ruined,
The season has gone badly, trouble, I know, is brewing,
Ignorance is bliss, Knowledge is melancholic
Far better avoid mad despairing colic.
And so the days then passed along from Saturday to Tues,
When Sunday’s journals would bring forth all the football news,
(We are high up in the mountains – cursed Empyrean fate!
Newspapers get here slowly, often two days late)
We ’ventually though sallied forth, we journeyed fast by car,
To the nearest supermarket shop, by the name , I think, Lemar,
And there I descried the Guardian, on a shelf, just there by chance,
T’would cost me all of three pounds though (it came from via France),
My freedom was all quite lost, the paper it was bought
I opened up the pages, as usual quite distraught,
Expecting cruel defeat and presuming that we’d lost
I was ready to kick the paper to commemorate the loss,
But there it shone effulgent, Heaven was renewed,
Bristol City had scored 1 but Swindon Town scored 2,
The scorer it was Henderson, it seemed he got them both,
And this upon his debut, I swear by all my troth,
And I swear the skies then opened, and I sank down to my knees,
To hear a voice then loud proclaim
“This is my beloved Henderson, in whom I am well pleased.”

© Stuart Butler

Notes

OK. I made up the events of the last 3 lines, but Faith was restored for a week until we lost 3-2 at Walsall after going 2 up. But this is the great character building nature of supporting a football club isn’t it? You can take nothing for granted – far better to support a team that is only occasionally successful, don’t you think?

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/paradise-lost-and-regained-in-4-days/