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Nine-All and Fifteen-Three

Crispin Thomas

Sunday, March 25th, 2001

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 sad and strange echoes ring
pictures rise and fall
painful teachers drawn-out days
i can still recall

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 churning stomach walking in
homework never done
outside workmen joke and laugh
in snow and rain and sun

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 far away those echoes now
long gone hymn-filled hall
the magic bell of going home
and waiting for the call

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 and running crazy satchel flying
down the old playground
dribbling hurtling screaming stretching
bodies all around

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 fifteen, twenty, eight- a- side
no-one really cared
“you have him he’s useless..”
life – was being there

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 worn out shoes with cardboard
playing in the rain
concrete pitch and shins all grazed
clothing torn again

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 and after in the lamplight
up against the wall
tapping trapping all alone
my old tennis ball

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 and in that empty playground
trying hard to lose
growing fears of going home
mud-stained ripped and bruised

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 and sneaking under turnstiles
soaked and wet clean through
dreaming dreams you cling on long
as only dreamers do

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 but who could dream this simple game
would swift outgrow us all
would chrystalise to rule our lives.
but is it still football?

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 (…..as we know it)

© Crispin 2001

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/nine-all-and-fifteen-three/