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Sectarian Leg – Enfield Playing Fields 1989

Laurence Cotterell

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Mark was a 30 year old Irishman playing for us – Temple Bar, Southgate.
I said why aren’t you playing for them? What’s the mystery?
The opposition wore Celtic kits, they were Irish and all mates.
He said, “Larry it’s ‘cos of eight hundred years of bloody history.”

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Mark had spent 4 years in the Paras fighting in Falkland’s rain,
A stubborn and able midfield general, if only 5 foot tall,
But his leg twisted with a compound break all the same.
The big ginger-lad broke his shin-bone 2-foot above the ball.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 The sound of the snap, cut the afternoon in twain.
The ambulance was called and we covered Mark in coats.
We made sure he could not see his leg and the visible bone;
the ginger-lad not sure whether to be ashamed or gloat.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 But the lad in green took Mark’s hand in his own,
He held it; said he was from Cork and called Shaun,
He would apologise with a pint when he saw Mark in town.
And thus ended Enfield’s amateur Battle of the Boyne.

© Laurence Cotterell 25 25 Aug 2011

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/sectarian-leg-enfield-playing-fields-1989/