Football Poets

On Such A Day (for Holly and Jessica and their families)

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 it was one summer’s day when the news it came by
you could search high and low and not find a dry eye
and it wasn’t the news that you prayed it would be
but the same awful moment for you and for me –
while away in the distance they were playing some game
the start of a season but something had changed
and all of those fixtures seemed suddenly bland
from Rushden to Arsenal and way ‘cross the land

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 and what can you utter to lessen the blow
who can you turn to and where can you go
when everything else it just whithers and pales
and all of your strength it just stutters and fails –
for these were the words that we hoped to avoid
and these are the pictures where dreams are destroyed
these are the children that could have been ours
plucked from their lives that were open like flowers

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 but they sat at Old Trafford and at grounds ‘cross the land
and try as they might they could not understand
and sometimes you wonder what more can you do
while the tears fall together from me and from you –
and how can we ever help loved-ones recover
what can we say to a father or mother
what can we offer and where can we start
to help them pull though this and make a new start?

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 and why it all happens we never will know
but this is the minute when all that we know
is questioned and challenged like floods in a town
or wild winds and snow when there’s storm all around –

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 but now when the dark nights will follow blue skies
now when we gather with tears in our eyes
now when the anger it wells up inside
we reach out for someone or somewhere to hide –
for this is the one thing we always have known
we’re always together but always alone
alone but together and joined by it all
together in silence together appalled –
but we will give comfort wherever we can
we will remember and we will all stand –
together together alone in this world
alone with the sorrow the weeks have unfurled

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 for there was a time when we once were a child
those innocent years that we played in a while
when all that we knew were the things we were told
and how we’d be young til the day we grew old –
and there was an advert i think of it still
two children walking up over a hill
a long twisty pathway that bent to and fro
and it said little feet they have so far to go –

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 and all of those warnings all of those dangers
like crossing the road or talking to strangers
all of those moments you pray will not come
all of those nightmares just rolled into one –
but when the news takes you you numb like the snow
it freezes your thinking it pulls at your soul
and there in the darkness we never outgrow
there in the sadness wherever we go

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 but this is the time when you share in the grief
whatever you’ve always or never believed
to question where all of this darkness began
and man’s disrespect for his own fellow man

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 and it isn’t the media it’s closer to home
it’s everyone’s children from ours to your own
and you look for a reason and send out your love
you look for some guidance within or above
while everything else become meaningless void
such innocent life and such futures destoyed –

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 but away in the village and over the fields
they stand there in silence so deep and so real
and you swear though this mountain sweeps up like a fire
that you will keep trying and we will rise higher

¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 and maybe the odds they will loom like a tower
and maybe this feels like the darkest of hours
but we will not cease from the dream we all share
for a world that is safe that is loving and fair –
for they were the moment and children of now
but it hit such a chord when the news broke somehow
and on one summer day when the news it came by
you could search high and low and not find a dry eye

43