An Improvised Match
¶ 1
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Under a canopy of unbroken cloud,
across a junction over undropped kerbs
with gates and hedges for goals
and a wickedly uneven, improvised pitch,
you appeared in an urban field of dreams
arrayed on concrete asymmetrically
with distant patchworks of absent parents –
some at work, some gone for ever –
forming the emotional tenor of the game.
¶ 2
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This is where we learned to play.
That sick turn – not enough.
That defence-splitting pass
went under a car, I’m afraid.
The fence rapped, gatepost snapped:
neighbourhood watch hobbled up the path.
Mrs Van der Onyajogson said:
‘You can play out here boys, just not with the ball.’
What would be for tea? Could smells from No. 7
¶ 3
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also be for me? Behind those curtains
shadow movements. Out here odd conjunctions
stellar in the twilight, bikes and lampposts,
a vigil for returning cars
among the littered debris of the hour
rolling over drain covers. Why,
Eoghan, did you chip it off the bonnet?
And why return the pass, Chris,
at the exact moment Mrs Coombs
¶ 4
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slowed her mud-green Nissan Bluebird
for a stationary night to cut across our path?
¶ 5
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Council minutes will record
the splendour of the improvised match
in terms of its potential to disrupt
the civilised framework of the drives.
Great imagery Alex…
Playing in the street… grumpy neighbours… I go back to my old fifties Wharfdale Street, just off the Ifield Road sometimes Alex.
It’s barely a bright tennis ball’s throw from Stamford Bridge. We’d play for hours across that little street, stopping only for Remo’s ice cream van. So few car back then. I remember mad scores like 53-41.
We’d often play til it was so dark, we couldn’t see that little yellow ball anymore sometimes..
The marking on the old brick wall in streets now lined with cars 24 x 7 are faint… but still there.
Yes. We played footy in the street, and Peter Lorimer (not me) broke the window-pane at number twenty-eight. Kenneth Wolstenholme was particularly impressed, and Leeds meet Chelsea in the semi-final.