Football Poets

The End of Illusion

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So when I look back, what do I remember?

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 The regressive sense of anticipation,

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Being a boy again but with Christmas Eve in summer:

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Digging my plot and seeing red ants and slow worms –

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 The imagination goes on a journey,

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 With the heat and the dust, it’s just like Africa!

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 The 3 pigeons chewing on my winter greens become vultures,

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 The World Cup is here at last, Christmas in summer.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 I walk the fields to the pub, grown men are clad in flag-wraps,

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 England go one nil up early doors, then it’s downhill all the way.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 Trudging back from the Crown and Sceptre,

¶ 12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 The echoes of youths playing footie in the twilight,

¶ 13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 Swopping disappointments with strangers in the street:

¶ 14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 “A draw’s not the end of the world”,

¶ 15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 “They’d cane us if we played them at American Football”.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 But the parish council notice board is still covered with red crosses,

¶ 17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 The 2nd hand charity shops have their patriotic displays,

¶ 18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 And even the catatonic Algeria game knocked us only sideways,

¶ 19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 The Prince Albert’s fuzzy big screen hid the truth,

¶ 20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 So I agreed with the rotund man in a red shirt

¶ 21 Leave a comment on verse 21 0 I met in town the next day, when he said

¶ 22 Leave a comment on verse 22 0 “You’ve got to keep the faith haven’t you?”

¶ 23 Leave a comment on verse 23 0 “But that Robert Green. I don’t know why they picked him.”

¶ 24 Leave a comment on verse 24 0 A few tense days later, the joy of Serbia,

¶ 25 Leave a comment on verse 25 0 A baking hot courtyard in the Vic’ in Stroud,

¶ 26 Leave a comment on verse 26 0 Men in red shirts bouncing up and down,

¶ 27 Leave a comment on verse 27 0 Then a small, mute message ,

¶ 28 Leave a comment on verse 28 0 Top right hand corner of the screen,

¶ 29 Leave a comment on verse 29 0 Just while we were celebrating – the USA had gone top:

¶ 30 Leave a comment on verse 30 0 Now it was the route of death;

¶ 31 Leave a comment on verse 31 0 Walking the dog past the Prince Albert,

¶ 32 Leave a comment on verse 32 0 Keith Allen sitting outside my local,

¶ 33 Leave a comment on verse 33 0 No Vindaloo now, just Germany.

¶ 34 Leave a comment on verse 34 0 Then going to London on the day of the game,

¶ 35 Leave a comment on verse 35 0 Conceding defeat the day before,

¶ 36 Leave a comment on verse 36 0 By buying 10p. England flags from Wilkinsons,

¶ 37 Leave a comment on verse 37 0 Stuffing those into my bag, together with my 1966 shirt,

¶ 38 Leave a comment on verse 38 0 Imagining swanning down the Thames in post-match triumph,

¶ 39 Leave a comment on verse 39 0 But listening to a Holocaust survivor in the afternoon,

¶ 40 Leave a comment on verse 40 0 Feeling guiltily embarrassed about asking for news of the game,

¶ 41 Leave a comment on verse 41 0 The texts seeming irrelevant in the context of Auschwitz;

¶ 42 Leave a comment on verse 42 0 Leaving the meeting at 4.30: Smithfield, funereal,

¶ 43 Leave a comment on verse 43 0 The pubs silent, despite the bunting,

¶ 44 Leave a comment on verse 44 0 Then walking along the canal at Paddington Basin,

¶ 45 Leave a comment on verse 45 0 No-one bothered about the result,

¶ 46 Leave a comment on verse 46 0 Just enjoying life in the sun,

¶ 47 Leave a comment on verse 47 0 Young men boating and idly blowing bubbles,

¶ 48 Leave a comment on verse 48 0 Conversations about the history of Westbourne and Paddington,

¶ 49 Leave a comment on verse 49 0 With Manuel, a Basque child rescued in 1938,

¶ 50 Leave a comment on verse 50 0 Friend of the International Brigade,

¶ 51 Leave a comment on verse 51 0 Chatting about Bill Alexander, Laurie Lee and the west country,

¶ 52 Leave a comment on verse 52 0 Then coming home on the train, past the White Horse,

¶ 53 Leave a comment on verse 53 0 The sun slanting down over the cornfields,

¶ 54 Leave a comment on verse 54 0 Going past Sapperton, where nearly 100 years ago,

¶ 55 Leave a comment on verse 55 0 My dad lived after World War One,

¶ 56 Leave a comment on verse 56 0 Their home an ex-army Nissan Hut,

¶ 57 Leave a comment on verse 57 0 And so back to Stroud,

¶ 58 Leave a comment on verse 58 0 Where the paella and footie up the Albert

¶ 59 Leave a comment on verse 59 0 Segued into paella and Glastonbury on the big screen,

¶ 60 Leave a comment on verse 60 0 And dancing in the street,

¶ 61 Leave a comment on verse 61 0 With no recriminations about the result,

¶ 62 Leave a comment on verse 62 0 Because, in the end, are they worth bothering about?

¶ 63 Leave a comment on verse 63 0 I’ve chucked the flags out and use the shirt for gardening –

¶ 64 Leave a comment on verse 64 0 It’s the end of the age of arrested development’s illusions:

¶ 65 Leave a comment on verse 65 0 Instead, let’s remember the slogans and advertisements,

¶ 66 Leave a comment on verse 66 0 “Celebrate Africa’s Humanity”,

¶ 67 Leave a comment on verse 67 0 “From Shantyland to Dignity”,

¶ 68 Leave a comment on verse 68 0 “A e wele mo metsing”,

¶ 69 Leave a comment on verse 69 0 “Let there be Peace”,

¶ 70 Leave a comment on verse 70 0 “One for All and All for One”,

¶ 71 Leave a comment on verse 71 0 “Playing for Pride and Glory”,

¶ 72 Leave a comment on verse 72 0 “Four Legends, One Label”,

¶ 73 Leave a comment on verse 73 0 “Three Lions, One Taylor”,

¶ 74 Leave a comment on verse 74 0 “Proud to be Different”.

¶ 75 Leave a comment on verse 75 0 Now, which ones embarrass you?