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PERSPECTIVE

Michael Adubato

Monday, February 2nd, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Congratulating themselves and each other
Those in their sixty quid team shirts
Like the ones the players are wearing
Bought in the club’s gift shop

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Slaps on backs
Great big bear hugs
Hearty handshakes
For strangers with nothing in common except that
They wear the same shirts

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 They buy the same over-priced tickets
Slap each other on those same over-priced shirts
And work themselves into an ecstatic frenzy
Because they saw the diving keeper fail
Saw the ball ruffle the net

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 How important Saturday, 3 p.m. is to them
A reason to get out of bed
Monday through Friday
To earn that money to buy those pints before
Buying those over-priced tickets on Saturday

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Life is nothing but watching that damn ball
Being kicked and kicked often by
Their millionaire heroes from France
And Italy and Brazil and from all over Africa
And sometimes even from England

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Punters digging deeply into shallow pockets
Buying BMWs and Porches and
Top of the range four-wheel-drive sports vehicles
For those who have never been down a mine
Breathing the dust of coal that would kill them

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Have never spent hours in traffic going to work
At five in the morning
And then another couple of hours doing the same
In the opposite direction
After another shitty day in the office

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 Yet we love them
We worship them
These heroes from far away
They come to kick the English footballs
Into the English goals

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/perspective/