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A Presumptuous Afternoon.

kevin raymond

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Presumptuous travel agencies
Stood next to touts with rakes of tickets
Were on the streets like vagrants
Hawking ‘what if’ trips to Rome’s Eternal City.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Elderly William stood about chatting
As these touts with blatant front
Reminded one of haggling
In New Delhi street bazaars when young.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 On the sun drenched stadium tarmac
Our sights were on today
Agin West London rivals who perhaps
Might cause us slight more ire than Spain?

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Huge crowd outside the turnstiles
With their plastic cards produced
Were turning somewhat hostile
On hearing first goal scored enthuse.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 “Who scored first” the faithful asked
“Was it them or us?”
As locked out basking in the sun
Puffed on banned fag butts and cussed.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 After the second goal? Sheer mayhem
“Come on get them turnstiles clicking
It’ll be half time in this blimmin game
Before you get us, stood stuck outside here…in.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 I’d left me pile in ‘The Burbs’ with plenty of time
To arrive at the stadium early
But what’s the point if stood stuck in a line
When the hi tech new way in’s not working?

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 It was one all when we reached our seats
Ten minutes of the derby played
As technology for fans with pre paid tickets
Failed again and made us valued clents late!

© Kev 009

Notes

A Saturday afternoon of two quite very different presumptions over in a gorgeous sunny (once again!) West London yesterday.

1) By touts and travel agents handing out flyers assuming we’re going to beat Barca (hopefully) on Wednesday evening and play whoever in Rome so they can flog us their topped up travel packages to the first all English final in The Beautiful Eternal City and rip us off yet again.

2) On a more serious note, arriving at The Bridge in what I presumed was plenty of time to get in and watch The West London Derby. I was quite amazed to see crowds of people in massive queues still trying to get in the stadium at every entrance I passed well before kick off time.

Whats the point of us: fans, clients, supporters, punters, what-ever they want to call us paying for state of the art plastic chipped tickets to work with people-less turnstiles. when we’ve got to have an operator at the entrance and another at the the exit to said turnstile advising the crowds how to get in one at a time and slowing down the preocess?

Even though there’s signs clearly printed showing you how to use your credit card type or old style paper (get away, never) match ticket to obtain entry to the ground.

We’re now using more people power (two) than than in the old days when we had (one) and we gained entrance a hell of a lot faster.

Is this Hi -Tech entry system a safer one for us supporters when the faithful are pushing and heaving at a quarter to three to get in?

The answer is no it’s not.

I was there well before three and couldn’t believe the game had started,
it was – as the poem says, one all before I managed to get to me seat. If it had finished as a one all draw I’d have been well gutted.

Peace.

Kev.

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