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How Did You Get Me Again?

Alex Saynor

Saturday, May 14th, 2022

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 How did you get me twice? Back on the field
I thought I had escaped your clutches, comments,
your dismissive shaking of the head.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 The frustrated Biology teacher helping with games,
telling us we were useless with a glance:
You got me then – now you’ve got me again.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 As a colleague, what’s your motivational speech?
‘Write down the profession you wanted as a child’;
a raised eyebrow when he saw ‘footballer’ for me.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Yet I remember Mr Rooke’s report:
‘Combines pace and skill to very good effect’,
so you just didn’t like me mate

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 with your whingeing Reading ways and opinions,
your bulging stomach and incredulous look:
‘With the best will in the world gentlemen,

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 and I hate to say this, but you cannot let Mr Saynor
do that to you’ he said on the one occasion
I could train with the first team

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 despite playing for the same club with them every week.
He got me once; now he’s done it again.
What is this bizarre universe

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 that repeats its irrelevant lessons
and strange humiliations? Why do I have to sit with this fellow
whose judgement and opinion I so disrespect

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 and go through the motions of politeness.
How do I get this off my chest?
I can’t say ‘I was really quite good; ask Mr Rooke.’

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 ‘Who have you played for since’ he would say,
the moaning Reading fan who moans at Reading fans,
sits in the same seat and groans at everyone he sees,

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 manages the school team but stops supporters singing.
Who are you really? How did you get me again?
Adult protocols say ‘leave it to the past.’

12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 Try to make friends. You got me once;
I could leave it there – but now you’ve got me again!

13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 I sat next to him at Parents’ Evening;
‘Your son has the attention span of a dead newt.’
What an opening line; what a plan

14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 for survival from the child to be a newt,
deceased, to his Jeremy Clarkson,
his bullshit bluster, his empty lessons.

15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 He got me once, and he got me twice
after seventeen years in between;
now God forbid I meet him again.

Notes

This is about a teacher I didn’t like (or who didn’t like me!) whose cutting words included here left a lasting impression. Unfortunately, many years later I then had to work with him for 6 months or so and he managed to get another dig in during that time despite somehow now seeing me in a positive light having taught me all those years before. His opening line at Parents’ Evening (I was sitting at the adjacent table) really was said!

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/how-did-you-get-me-again/