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Bonkers-tastic! (On Conkering Racism In Sport)

Crispin Thomas

Friday, October 4th, 2002

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 it’s not just football friends oh no
that suffers in this style
they’ve banned the sport we loved to play
is racism to blame I say
how can our schools just take away
our conkers?

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 and banish now like leaves from trees
on Autumn’s concrete floor
the right to glorious chestnut times
more dangerous than mountain climbs
i had to put it into rhyme
it’s bonkers

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 more violent they now proclaim
than derbies or the like
now ended after endless years
like six-ers that we lost in tears
our youthful dreams we lost our fears
in rompers*

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 no longer in the schoolyards
these conquered implements
now driven from the cycle shed
they turn a deeper shade of red
is liberty and freedom dead
i really think its bonkers

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 gone with the summer gone for good
gone with our childhood days
no drying them – no soaking well
no trying to hide the vinegar smell
no heating them no one to tell
but conkers

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 they’ve taken it away now
the danger risk and more
of string in eyes or stinging thighs
of locker-rooms comparing size
of boy-ish-girlish fiendish cries
when smashed ones go astray
in Yonkers***

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 and only rebels will persist
as rebels always will
without permission from their mums **
or letter-writing forging chums
like people who tattoo their thumbs
they’re bonkers

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 this game of conkers we all love
now banned in every town
you ask me of me and I reply
that underneath I wonder why
and just like Ali G I cry

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 is it because they’re brown?

© ct02

Notes

conker-appendix/terminallyserious-ologies

*(rompers)..many very young conker players were still in these when they began ‘conkering’ the playground(apparently?)

**written permission from parents or guardians is now requried to play conkers at school, already in most schools..it’s over to you Brockworth and Stuart the conker is in your court-yard??.

***Yonkers- a great American city where conkers is really popular(allegedly?)

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/bonkers-tastic-on-conkering-racism-in-sport/?shared=email&msg=fail