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Ollie Byrne

Peter Goulding

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I see a stocky man encroaching
‘Pon the Deportivo turf.
Arms outstretched, he’s now approaching
As on Galilean surf.
Portly chest puffed out with vigour,
Milking the sustained applause.
Lo! the proud and joyous figure
Crown prince of the matadors.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 As I watched, my mind remembered
Sunday gloom at Harold’s Cross.
Winter afternoons dismembered
By another stunning loss.
Ollie, shaking hands and beaming,
Sharp of tongue and sure of stride,
Shrewd, yet not averse to dreaming
Of the day we’d turn the tide.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 On that evening mild and balmy
Basking in Galician heat,
Ollie faced the trav’lling army
Like a beaming paraclete.
As we hailed our bounteous saviour,
Little did we think at all
That our overjoyed behaviour
Would so soon begin to pall.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Now he lies there, frail and drowsy,
Staring at the surgeon’s knife.
Heartbeat weak, prognosis lousy,
Clinging grimly onto life,
While the club he loved so dearly
Lies in rubble down the road.
Once so mighty, now ‘tis merely
Stanchions starting to corrode.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Not the time for ancient grudges,
Handed down through bitter lore,
Not the time for gleeful judges,
Though his kingdom is no more.
Brash buffoon or grasping schemer,
Gulping from the fiscal lake?
Yes, he was a hopeless dreamer
And we followed in his wake.

© Peter Goulding 31st January 2007

Notes

Both the club and the man that built her up lie in ruins

For Ollie, thanks for the dreams.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/ollie-byrne/