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United We Stood…

Simon Parr

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 what does football mean to me?
Is a very interesting question to have asked
Causing loads of memories that I thought were long since dead
To come flooding back into my head
In one big infestation from my past.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 I can remember, January Saturday afternoons
Standing on the terraces and cottoning on to the mood
Freezing half to death.
With my Parka zipped up right to the hood
And if I tried, I could see my breath.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Starving,
But with no real use for food
United we stood
Huddled together
Keeping warm in any way we could.
This sometime jeering
Sometime cheering
But always admiring group.
Some sucked their hip flasks
Stuffed with a mysterious thing called booze
And I was quite happy with my polystyrene cup of soup.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 It was just like a grown-up pantomime
With all the requisite hurrahs and boos
Lots of shouting, cursing and noise.
And the occasional, ‘Come on the U’s’
Would filter through
I really was’ just one of the boys’
And if you were ‘one of the boys’
This is what was expected of you.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 And after,
Dad and Grandad would go for a pint
And me a lemonade
This was better than staying at home
Playing with my toys
I felt I had it made.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 And if I didn’t go
I’d sit staring at the Ceefax screen
Watch the colours change
From yellow to green
Try to picture the scene.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Come Monday,
I’d walk into school
With my head held high
Fingers crossed
Someone would ask me ‘Why?’
My head was in the clouds
And I was touching the sky.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 And after school,
I’d sit studying my ‘British Football Encyclopedia’
And devouring each and every type of media
‘Cause when you first get a taste
You just keep getting greedier.

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Now,
Well, I flip the paper straight over
So the first thing I read’s the back page.
And I freely commit half my monthly wage
And down the pub,
I secretly want to be considered something of a wise old sage

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 But,
Has it been good for my health?
It’s certainly been detrimental to my wealth
But it’s always been something with which I gladly share my shelf
It’ll just always be a part of myself.

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 And that’s how it happened
I was a child who looked away
Turned back
And suddenly I’d aged
And through it all
My love for football
Is the only thing that hasn’t changed.

© Simon Parr 18.03.2008

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/united-we-stood/