Football Poets

VAR on the grapevine

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So Marvin Gaye heard
It on the grapevine
The rumour mill is
Buzzing frantically
VAR could be binned
Oh glory, glory glory
So football finally
Comes to its senses
And not before time
Various parts of the
Anatomy are
No longer responsible
For goals shrouded
In controversy
Forget that insane
Offside law
It always seemed absurd
Football dictated by
High tech graphics
Hieroglyphics at times
It seems, so old
And dusty are the rules
Regulations
Illustrations and lines
Movements of shoulders,
Arms, toes straying
On the wrong side
Of legality
Elbows offside
Trees offside
Programme sellers offside
Floodlights offside
Show the yellow card
To intruding shadows
Book them now
On the pitch
Remove those encroaching
Hips from the last line
Of defence
Because they were offside
As well
A comedy of errors
This multitude of madness
90 minutes of organised chaos
Goals no longer goals
Suspended in animation
Fans raucous cheers
Silenced, stilled
Surely this has got
To stop immediately
And it looks as though
It might
Get rid of
Nonsensical VAR
Abstract absurdities
It’s disfiguring
The great game
Sucking the joy
Out of its essence
Mocking its tradition
Its gorgeous grandeur
Slowed down immeasurably
Its tantalising tensions
Those electrifying excitements
To a snail’s pace
Punctured and punctuated
By pitch side screens
Referees studying for their
A Levels or so it would seem
Look at those angles
And then after a thousand
Centuries of dilly dallying
Potty prevarication
Scratching of heads
It’s a goal surely
But hold on it’s offside
Oh no it’s not.
Yes it is
But those shorts were
Infringing and
Interfering with play
Time for the spray
Yes the dreaded
White paint on
Lush green May grass
Draught excluders
At free kicks
Players kipping
At their leisure
No time for forty winks
The game is no longer
The one we used to know
But maybe our generation
Should have known this would happen
VAR just trampling all over
Football’s fertile ground
Of imaginative innovations
Squeezing out the positive
Draining its energies
Leaving it senseless
And dumbfounded
Just leave the goals
To stand before
Football sinks into the morass
Deep into the quicksand
Vanishing without trace
It’s a goal definitely
Emphatically
Stockley Park
Please examine your conscience
Football is in dire need of
Decisive thinking
No more ferocious disputes
About goals resolved
By machinery rather than
Humanity, please
Stop these twenty minute
Deliberations about
Obvious goals scored
Before somebody introduces
A third half
Logical extensions
Of injury time
VAR it has to be
Abolished, locked away
In the archives of time
Never to be seen again
Oh please for football’s sake
Restore its immediacy
Now before football
Forgets about its fans
Its vibrant, vivacious
Heart and soul

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