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Net Gains

Andy Lockett

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Hit hard.
Hit true.
Hit home

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Flailing fingers fail to reach – a missed touch.
It’s in. It billows the net, the web of resistance
And it drops to ground. In the bag.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 A pause of silence. Then an almighty roar.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 1 – 0.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Wembley and Hampden stretched back
Into the arc of turf behind. West Ham’s
Were narrow. No room in the East End.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 I liked the sort that draped just enough to
Ripple. White fish nets, alluring to a lad
Standing on the North Bank..

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 No such luxury at school, or in the back
Yards. Just a bare frame eight by eight
In yards and feet. Or jumpers for posts.
A cliched childhood.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 2 – 0

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 And players used to run through to swing in
The netting; ecstatic at the moment of triumph.
Keepers got tangled in it. Photographers knelt
Behind it, as penalties were tucked away, And
They recorded it for posterity.

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 3 – 0.

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 Hit hard.
Hit true.
Hit home.

© andy Lockett 2010

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/net-gains/