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The Not So Subtle Differences

Chris Barber

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Once, sometimes twice, a week
we have sat next to each other.
In the two or so hours we spend
in each others company, we talk.
We talk a lot.
We talk football.
We talk about the club.
We talk cars and traffic.
We talk of our kids and jobs.
We’ve discussed the price of fuel
beer, admission and the scandal
of half time refreshments.
We have cheered together,
jeered together, and harmonised
advice, to referees.
At the three shrill blasts,
we have shaken hands,
said “See you next week”
and gone our separate ways.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Today there is an extra seat.
My wife wanted to come along.
Now I know so much more
about “the bloke at football”
His name, always a good start.
He’s forty six, twice married.
The ages of his three kids.
His mother has Parkinsons,
his dad died five years ago.
He’s a cancer survivor,
eight years now.
He holidays on the Algarve.
His youngest is at school
with our eldest.
I suppose it is true,
that while men like things,
women like people, and,
thanks to that difference,
“the bloke at the football”
has become a friend.
Match day conversations ?
More rounded and interesting.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Chris Barber.

Notes

Editor note: Brilliant Chris. A few echoes here.What are we blokes like?

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-not-so-subtle-differences/