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Right Outsider

Geoffrey Winch

Monday, November 9th, 2020

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 the position I cherished
but never had the chance to play
for the team at Junior School –

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 my friend, David D, best five-stones
player and fag-packet flicker of
the playground, and always our superb
right winger who I loved to watch –
so much faster, trickier, neater –
admiringly

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 and Senior School the same – again
a friend, Michael L who, with so much
skill, still I never got to play for the school

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 but made it at least to my house team
and felt like a champion for a game
or two or three each year

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 and played right wing for my Boys’ Brigade
company ¬ so many seasons of crazy games:
winning one week thirty goals to three
losing the next sixteen to one

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 then at last for me the big time! being selected
for the Battalion to play right wing against
Southampton and Slough when my surprisingly
accurate centering ensured our two-one victory

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 but it was Jimmy Wheeler most of all I admired –
top goal scorer and right winger all those years
I followed the Biscuitmen before they became
The Royals

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 his speed, dribbling, centering hardly ever
failing to find Tommy Dixon’s head
or the foot of Jimmy Whitehouse –

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 that is after Stanley Matthews . . .

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/right-outsider/