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Last of the Crooners

Alex Saynor

Friday, June 12th, 2015

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 A tour of east coast marine
towns and villages,
flat Lincolnshire fields
and The Wash yields
easily-reached-for names:
Mariners, Pilgrims, odd
ways round to Southwold,
grammatically shot to bits
by Ipswich, destroyed
verbally by the Thames Estuary
before Southend and Canvey
for Shrimpers and Gulls,
an unlikely journey
for the last of the crooners
from singing on the pitch
to Eastlands castigation
to holding hands for penalties.
‘Shall we stand together
in the middle? It’s so far out
of our hands now’ said Gareth;
‘we’re exactly the same
so when one of us wins
we won’t get carried away
if we stand first as friends.’

© Alex Saynor

Notes

A certain manager made bold decisions: singing, reprimanding players in public at Eastlands (an enduring psychological legacy?) and moving to a much lower division from which he has now emerged victorious following a shoot out for which Gareth Ainsworth decided the best course of action was for the managers to stand together to prevent celebrations from intensifying the pain of defeat.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/last-of-the-crooners/