Oh, dear ... was it Nietzsche or Wittgenstein that uttered the immortal words: “I don’t sodding believe it – it’s only happened again!” No, that’s right – it was Arthur at the shop when I picked up my paper……
Never mind, England, you did us all proud over a wonderful month of competition but just failed at the last. No one’s perfect – not even Georgie Best. And I once saw Maradona miss a penalty. However, after a dream start, it has to be said that Italy had us on the back foot for the rest of the match – and, eventually, when that happens, something’s got to give. My feeling is that an over-cautious team selection – or more specifically, the omission of Saka; the re-positioning of Sterling (i.e. on the right); and the continued use of Grealish as a ‘go to’ option (and always a very late ‘go to’ option); – allowed Italy to gradually take control and take us, with an increasing and sickening sense of inevitability, to the dreaded penalties…
But congratulations to Italy! They entered the lion’s den, vastly outnumbered in support, weathered the trauma of conceding a ridiculously early goal, and then played their way to dominance and ultimately, victory.
So: to finish this blog/series of poems, ‘At The Euro’s’, I am going to post another sequence of four short poems – but this time taken from my debut pamphlet, Theatre of Dreams (Smith/Doorstep, 2009). Recounting a trial period with Manchester United, when I was sixteen, they capture, for me, all that was, and is, good about the game – the Beautiful Game.
Bitter sweet in that I didn’t eventually sign for them – although there’s a story to tell there –
the moral could be, perhaps, to never be defined by disappointment, but to get straight back in there. And win! (I think Arthur at the shop said that as well….?)
So heads up and well done England. You were great. (And I believe that there’s a World Cup taking place next year, isn’t there..?)
***
THEATRE OF DREAMS
1 – SIR MATT
Old Trafford, Manchester, 1970
A voice like gravel soaked in honey:
Hello, there son.
So this is what God’s like.
Outside the office window,
the grey wash of Stretford skyline
was suddenly Technicolor;
like that scene from Mary Poppins
where Dick Van Dyke
dances with the penguins
and it’s as if you’ve had
a tab of acid
dropped in your tea.
2 – DENIS
The Cliff, Manchester, 1970
Keep it to yourself, son!
His laughing response
to my surname.
As wick as he was on the pitch,
everything around him
seemed slow, dull.
And those lifts into Manchester
when he’d catch a green light,
I half expected his salute through the sunroof!
He drove a cherry red jag
like Inspector Morse’s – only untidier:
kid’s toys and health foods in the back.
He could have done stand-up:
wise-cracking with passing fans
when the lights were on red
the only thing it seemed to me
that had any chance of stopping him.
3 – NOBBY
The Cliff, Manchester, 1970
Nipping smartly past you
I was soon flat on my arse:
Can’t get away with that ’ere son!
Then after you’d been struck on the head
by a Charlton thunderbolt – a worried Bobby
helping you up – your brilliant simile:
like a fucking bread pudding that bastard!
And later still, when playing out your career
with Middlesbrough Reserves, I zipped past you again
one freezing, flood-lit night and scored: honours even.
Not that it mattered.
I mean, three years earlier,
you’d left your mark on me forever.
4 – BEST
The Cliff, Manchester, 1970
Too overawed to speak
so I brushed shoulders
as we trooped off from training.
You signed autographs
for young girls who’d slipped through the gates,
as I bent down to fiddle with a lace.
Then, amazingly, we were alone.
You in front – my fourth person of The Trinity:
that gunslinger waddle; head slightly to one side;
as though carrying some brilliantly jewelled cross,
the price you had to pay
for re-defining how a game could be played.
Me? Third division only, I’m afraid
(and not long there, either),
with a cross of my own to bear
and a grave lesson to learn – namely this:
that I could never, ever, be me
as long as I was trying to be you.
Mike Di Placido
Theatre of Dreams (Smith/Doorstop, 2009)