Football Poets

Giggs got two

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Every Monday morning came a knock at the door
Gordon with his coffee come to ask about the score.
Both fans of Man United, both living abroad
We were desperate to know who won and who scored.
Living in Switzerland was plenty of fun
But there were no English papers – not even The Sun.
No Premier League stories down the information highway
Just ski reports and ice hockey from Monday to Friday.
I ate bucket loads of fondue, drank pints of schnapps,
Swapped snowboard stories with the Finns and the Lapps.
No-one could tell me the outcome of the game
Even though they all knew Bobby Charlton’s name.
And every Monday morning came a knock at the door:
Gordon with his coffee come to ask about the score.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Then one wet Sunday with little to do
I was trawling through the teletext on Swiss channel two.
I knew at last I’d found the right station –
Here was Europe’s football information.
The teletext story was somewhat flawed
It told me the score but not who scored.
I was thankful for small mercies – at least I knew who’d won
Although to know who got the glory would be even more fun.
I told all this to Gordon, but it didn’t sink in,
His brain was made of pate spread exceedingly thin.
He’d ask, was it Solskjaer? And Keane? Tell me who.
Or maybe it was Beckham? Did Giggs get two?
This went on every Monday for at least half the season,
I thought I was in danger of losing my reason.
I considered moving country, and even plastic surgery
Or pretending I was deaf, but that would be perjury.
At last, one Monday, I found the English papers
And turned to the back to read about United’s capers.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Three little words made a dream come true;
I was over the moon – Giggs got two!

13