|

sunday papers

Stuart Butler

13th February 2005

Up at 5 and out by 7 for a walk with the dog after a bit of school work and vegetable bashing and then back for a quick scan of the Observer’s football pages. A couple of things took the eye before I at last reached the bit where it says Swindon 2 Barnsley 1 – big debate about Chelsea and whether their buying success is merely the Premiership epitomised or whether it’s off the scale; and a feature about the foul mouthed abuse that referees suffer from sundry highly paid role models.
Here’s the essence of the Chelse feature – part of one letter, for example, says “…Drogba may not have as many goals as …Hasselbaink, but I know who the fans prefer. John Terry has been at the club since his early teens. He and Mourinho have class and passion to burn and deserve to be champions since they have earned it on the pitch.”
Against that, a foreign student comments on the “manner and speed with which Mr. Abramovich got his money to invest in the club.The blunt truth is that the sweat and blood of Russia’s working class are dripping from Chelsea players’ shirts.”
I thought about a poem – ragged trousered philanthropists nearly rhymes with Abramovich sort of thing – but also wondered what I would think if a mogul took over Swindon Town and propelled us to the heights; let he who is without sin cast the first stone sort of business.
As Mrs. Merton almost used to say, perhaps we should have a debate. Talking of which, I read this from a rugby union referee, “I couldn’t be a football ref.. I couldn’t stand the abuse and the disrespect. How Ro0ney stayed on the park I just don’t know. I can’t remember the last time anyone swore at me as a referee. There’s a lot of preventative refereeing in rugby…”
Any poetical contributions to these debates, anyone?

Categories:

Butler's Bench

You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Source: https://footballpoets.org/news/2005/02/13/sunday-papers/