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Hammersmith Clipboards

Alex Saynor

Saturday, May 14th, 2022

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Then I realised there is no central being,
no person in a back room with an Akashic list
or metaphysical clipboard in Hammersmith.
Ultimately, ‘Fulham’ does not exist.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 No single person can validate your support;
will loyalty points cross our final threshold,
rowed over unsettled water by a ferryman courier
for passage to a packed away end

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 in a time or land beyond
past a turnstile guardian of allegiances,
a footballing psychopomp?

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 There is no embodiment of a club;
transitory players in crests on the grass
are the furthest things we have from its heart

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 with noble outliers rare or retired.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Is a land or person defined by a word
as place names gesture to shifting rivers
or long-forgotten visitors? There is no club
beyond shared drinks over synaptic brail grids –
at The Bricklayer’s Arms or The Crabtree –

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 scanned together for favourite memories or players
from the dark room of another century.

Notes

There seems to be a lot of debate/competition both within and between clubs as to who the ‘real’ supporters are, or who has the best supporters. It made me think that there is no authority on this – no-one that can definitively validate or define someone as a fan, and also that a football club isn’t generally embodied fully by anyone in its hierarchy: it only really exists in the shared memories and thoughts of fans. Perhaps it came about due to frustration at my own club’s loyalty points system (I travelled away to Middlesbrough and Derby on weeknights but couldn’t get a ticket to Bournemouth at the weekend)!

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/hammersmith-clipboards/