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A Quite Unbelievable Tale

Peter Goulding

Sunday, May 23rd, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It started off quite an incongruous day,
When April was tiring and turning to May.
The nondescript sky was a nondescript grey,
Though black clouds loomed large in the distance.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 I first saw the news when I went on the ‘Net.
It gave me a jolt I will never forget.
My forehead broke out in small beads of cold sweat,
To which I could mount no resistance.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 I had to sit down for my legs went all weak,
I opened my mouth but I scarcely could speak.
All that came out was a minuscule squeak,
As I read and re-read the strange story.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 I’d never heard anything like it before,
So totally GUBU it stuck in my craw.
It flouted an age-old and natural law,
As if Gerry Adams turned Tory.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 The story concerned a once-proud Shelbourne fan,
Whose love for the Reds was no flash in the pan.
A frequently loud and quite vocal young man,
Which deepened this puzzling mystery.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 For seemingly now, as this strange story goes,
[I still have great trouble believing the prose]
He’d switched his allegiance from Shelbourne to Bohs,
An action unheard of in history.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Now I’ve heard some incredible things in my life,
Like the man who professed that he still loved his wife,
Or the couple who go off and follow East Fife,
Or the animals sailing with Noah.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 But never in all of my most wildest dreams
Have I heard of a man who transferred football teams.
The country’s in desperate chassis, it seems,
Thank God we can’t sink any lower!

© Peter Goulding 23rd May 2004

Notes

GUBU – an Irish word coined by Conor Cruise O’Brien after Charlie Haughey described it as “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented” claims that he had tried to influence the President into calling an election. Which, in fact, he probably had.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/a-quite-unbelievable-tale/