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The Blue Bus

Steve Linstead

Friday, December 10th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Tuscan shrubberies trickle and scurry
Down the hillsides from monastery to fattoria.
My tapping toe flicks a dusty rock
Away, past the rear of the rumbling coach,
The colour of an Azzuri shirt,
Full of hungry Europeans
Waiting for my connection.
The network responds.
Beneath the distant hissing
The words crackle in the handset.
Birmingham 0 …Barnsley 4…
Even Harry didn’t believe 4 away goals!
In the late spring play-off evening
The rustling pines and vines of Sangiovese
Echo to the roar of the blue bus.
Avanti Rossi!

Notes

I was outside a monastery near Siena in 2000 trying to get the result of the Division 1 playoff semi-final at St Andrews over my mobile. As the signal kept cutting in and out, I kept a bus full of people waiting to leave on a trip to a local winery, which in the event was ecstatic – I celebrated with an American Crystal Palace fan. Harry is of course Dave “Harry” Bassett. This was a great football moment, all the more poignant for there being no ball in sight. We went on to lose the the last competitive final to be played at Wembley 4-2 to Ipswich.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-blue-bus/