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Train Spotting is better than Football

The Train Spotter

Wednesday, October 10th, 2001

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I used to like football, I used to like Sven,
But now I’ve gone and started train spotting again,
And I used to like Bill and I used to like Ben,
But now I’ve gone and started train spotting again,
And I’m through with Action Man, I’m through with Ken,
Cuz now I’ve gone and started train spotting again,
And I won’t see 49 ever again,
And I’ll never go to Milwall, show courage at the Den,
Cuz now I’ve gone and started train spotting again,
And I’ve gone off pepper, especially cayenne,
And Chiang Kai Shek and Sun Yat Sen,
And all religion, particularly Zen,
And fighting the Wehrmacht in the Ardenne,
And I’m through with heroes, I’m through with them,
So Hereward the Wake can stay in the Fen,
(Unless he goes to Fenchurch Street now and again),
And as for the fairies down in the glen,
They’re not really train spotting men,
And as for that bird, the sweet jenny wren,
She utterly lacks train spotting acumen,
So take me out with bren guns or the one they call a sten,
Tie me to a high dolmen,
Make me dine on raw moorhen,
Make me live in the Great Wen,
Banish me to the Ogaden,
Take away my own cognomen,
Incarcerate me in a bullpen,
Far away in Fukien,
Make me mediate in cold Chechen,
But give me please my ruler, pencil, book and pen,
Thermos flask and duffle bag and anorak next then,
And let me go to old King’s Cross, Euston and then Crewe,
Darlington and Swindon, Derby, Timbuktoo,
York and then Eastleigh, Glasgow and then Troon,
And on into the Highlands, oh och aye the noo,
Gazing at the diesels in spotting pastures new,
Underlining numbers with my favourite best bic pen,
Eating my egg sandwiches in some snowy Scottish glen,
Ignoring all the football in the park they call Hamp-den,
Cuz at last I’ve gone and started train spotting again.

Notes

I was given a train numbers book as a joke birthday present in honour of recherche a la temps perdu and all that but now, unaccountably, I find myself hanging around train stations.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/train-spotting-is-better-than-football/