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A long journey

Peter Goulding

Sunday, March 18th, 2007

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Finn Harps 2 Shelbourne 1

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Distant Ballybofey
Is a long way away.
As a journey, its one of the worst.
By the time you reach Slane
You experience pain
Of a nagging unquenchable thirst.
In Monaghan town
You might get a few down
Though there’s none quite as sweet as the first.
Then on crossing the border
A pitstop’s in order
When your bladder is threatening to burst.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 With the villages blending,
The trip seems unending –
A view that a lot have expressed.
Though it was much worse
When we had to traverse
The country from east coast to west.
When the coaches were banned
From the partitioned land,
At the Government’s bitter behest,
And through Sligo we’d roll
To our faraway goal
With impatience but barely suppressed.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Yes the miles trundle by
‘Neath the grey leaden sky,
On each hour they repeat the same news.
You just gaze at the hedges
As memory dredges
The thoughts of each previous cruise.
And your legs may go numb
Or you get a sore bum
From being strapped into upholstered pews,
But though Ballybofey
Seems a lifetime away,
It’s longer back home when you lose.

© Peter Goulding 18th March 2007

Notes

Was it Captain Scott who said something like “A long way to have come without reward of priority?” Fortunately Dermot Keely and the lads survived the icy plateaux of Tyrone and Monaghan and reached base camp safely.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/a-long-journey/?shared=email&msg=fail