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Irony

Peter Goulding

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 “God Save the Queen” echoed round the four sides
Of the ground where strong mem’ry of slaughter resides,
Where fourteen men died for attending a game
That went down in poor Albion’s gall’ry of shame.
But that was so long ago, eighty years past,
We prayed that perhaps we had grown up at last.
And there were no boos when the anthem was played,
The few fundamentalists roundly dismayed.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Down near the Spire, he held up a sign –
“Say no to foreign games” – a quiet simple design.
(Of course it was perfectly fine for the Yanks,
Those purveyors of millions of missiles and tanks,
Xenophobic and moral and trusting in God,
To come play their football on our sacred sod.)
But he held up his sign for the boys of the press,
Quite proud of the views that he chose to express,
But the irony that the photographers saw
Belonged in the hooped Celtic jersey he wore.

© Peter Goulding 27th February 2007

Notes

Priceless picture in the Irish Daily Mirror on Monday of a RSF protester on the day England played at Croke Park at rugby holding up a placard saying “Say no to foreign games” while wearing a Glasgow Celtic jersey.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/irony/?shared=email&msg=fail