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You Never See Overhead Kicks On Plastic

Alun Robert

Sunday, December 13th, 2015

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Football – once a working class pursuit on a Saturday afternoon
when fathers took sons to watch their team play on mud

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 before tickets prices were exorbitant at the very top level
with spectators’ bums squashed into rigid plastic seats

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 before ground grading mattered for comfort and safety
to avoid repetitions of Valley Parade and Ibrox Park

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 before it became big business controlled by über-administrators
on a frolic of their own off in Zürich and beyond

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 before smart lawyers involvement in everything football
stifled much creativity while risk-managing corruption

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 before tv dictated schedules of when big games kicked off
and the day they’re played no matter fans’ inconvenience

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 before big clubs were über-wealthy from sponsorship money
with smaller clubs poorer due to Bosmanesque contracts

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 before managers were re-titled to become team coaches
wearing the sharpest of suits and talking in ripe clichés

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 before agents ruled the roost over players’ best intensions
when loyalty meant something compared to massive wages

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 before players’ shirts wore badges off advertising hoardings
for product placement is paramount over playing the game

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 before match officials ruled in pursuit of illustrious careers
at the expense of common sense and tenets of reason …

12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 was when football still entertained and united conurbations
who could afford to support their club playing at home

13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 for those fans stood together on crumbling concrete terraces
out in the rain exposed to all sorts of inclement weather

14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 before pitches were plastic permitting play in such conditions
all smooth, flat and raked deep with brown rubber granules

15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 where the ball bounces high like an Olympic trampoline warrior
much higher than anticipated by most casual observers

16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 but you never see overhead kicks on those plastic pitches
for players have been scarred from batterings to limbs

17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 and the long-term affects on knees and their ankles
haven’t been determined by pundits or researchers

18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 for due to the economics of modern plastic pitches
they’re utilised at grass roots but shunned by big clubs

19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 as they avoid potential dangers of exposing their players
to the rigours of plastic rather than traditional grass of

20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 football – a business class pursuit now performed in the media
with fathers joining sons to watch big teams play on tv.

© 2015

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/you-never-see-overhead-kicks-on-plastic/