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The journey of the city

Exile

Saturday, January 26th, 2002

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 A cold coming we had of it,
(I’ll say, maybe summer footy wouldn’t be such a bad thing)
Just the worst time of the year
(Nah that’s autumn mate, what with leaves on the line)
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
(Summer friendlies something else, not real footy at all)
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
(cant get 3 points anywhere, and the price of chips in London)
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
(And many times I’ve said it since on dark deserted winter trains)
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
(The wages players demand in the premiership)
And feet kicking the empty wineskins
(And kicking a ball along a wall
Dreaming of Gunny, Gossy and all
Dreaming of Bayern and Euro nights gone
Dreaming of tomorrow and days in the sun)

© Elinor Romans

Notes

This poem is about Norwich City over the past 10 years or so. It is very heavily based on TS Elliott’s The journey of the Magi. (Ie its a lot of his poem with just the bits in brackets written by me)

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-journey-of-the-city/?shared=email&msg=fail