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Followers

Richard Williams

Saturday, February 6th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Like all those before we walk the streets
We walk the streets towards the light
The light of this place our one true calling
One true calling we hallow this earth
This earth this place this scrap of green
This scrap of green of nurtured dreams
Of nurtured dreams over so many years
So many years and my grandfather’s hand
Hand on my shoulder and ushering me through
Through clicking turnstiles to climb these steps
Climb these steps my son’s turn now
My son’s turn now for this is our faith
For this is our faith we proclaim in song
We proclaim in song with all those before us

Notes

Like most of us I follow my team (Portsmouth) not through choice, but through being taken to a game by a family member (in my case my grandfather – my father has no interest in football). Going to a match is much more than the game itself (good job with the way Pompey have been for most of the seasons I have been following them!). It’s about generational connections to family and place. How much is still the same even though so much has changed.

This poem is about this – It’s also about how football is the closest that I , and many others I guess, come to any kind of faith. Which is why
it is written using anaphora – a poetic technique in which successive phrases or lines begin with the same words, often resembling a litany.

The term “anaphora” comes from the Greek for “a carrying up or back,”and, as one of the world’s oldest poetic techniques, anaphora is used in much of the world’s religious and devotional poetry, including numerous Biblical Psalms. Yes I did just google that last bit!

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/followers/