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The 12th Man

Sharon Jones

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Football is mausoleum sans fans
The stadiums mere hollow caverns of bricks and mortar
An abyss of deathly silence
And then on match day it’s sheer umbilical
The very concrete quivers with excitement
Itching for the human pulsebeat
That rises and roars into life
Fuses songs and chants from tongues and throats
The banter the dialogue
But more than this,
The heartbeat of football, thumps
Encased in that terrace cacophony of community
The beautiful feral wild creature that is the terrace,
Nothing like that swaying wall of unadulterated noise
The big wide hungry heart that gives and gives again
Breathing life into the game
And it’s not the high prices ticket touts
Or the over-inflated transfers
The ridiculous notion that anyone is worth 300 million
it’s not the Sky views promising a package to deliver match-day the same
But the 12th Man, can we still say that?
It’s our game, belonging to the fans,
Therefore collectively speaking
Yes, we can. football, our domain.
Swapping tales away days specials
Trabs and Sambas flags and banners
This is the resonance of football
True, you can buy up merchandise
And borrow the hymns ‘a capite ad calcem’
But the shifting paradigms of football lore
From the craic in the door to our hearts
Know you can’t buy soul with silver and gold
Or ransom this faith of our fathers ‘ad captandum’
Punk Politics Philosophy Football, and fans, always fans.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-12th-man-3/