The Shirt and The Inhaler.

 Following the Scunthorpe away report https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/the-shirt-and-the-iron-scunthorpe-away/

I felt the need to post the poem The Shirt mentioned in the post. It will follow, if my keyboard skills allow.

In posting this (from a Google search I was instantly linked to a whole range of brilliant poems on sport. Where was this tracking when I needed it (often the

bemused cry from sports supporters I suspect- possibly even, dare I say it, under-pressure managers.

So I am also including a superb poem which gos to the heart of “proper sport” and beyond: Pheidippedes’ Daughter

The Shirt

Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar and asked him what went wrong.

It’s the shirt, he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my back

like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm

seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo.

I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt,

smell like a dream; but the shirt sours my scent

with the sweat and stink of fear. It’s got my number.

I poured him another shot. Speak on, my son.

He did. I’ve wanted to sport the shirt since I was a kid,

but now when I do it makes me sick, weak, paranoid.

All night above the team hotel, the moon is the ball

in a penalty kick. Tens of thousands of fierce stars

are booing me. A screech owl is the referee.

The wind’s a crowd, forty years long, bawling a filthy song

about my Wag. It’s the bloody shirt!

He started to blub like a big girl’s blouse and

I felt a fleeting pity. Don’t cry,

I said, at the end of the day you’ll be back

on 100K a week and playing for City.

 

 

Against the careful, but appealing-to-me (I am the supporter of a lowly, but so-far financially managed within means* club) contrast this wonderful piece by the National Poet ofWales, Gillian Clarke. (it might help to know that Pheidippides was the soldier who ran the now-legendary distance from Marathon to Athens to carry the news that the battle had been won.

Pheidippedes’ Daughter (for Catrin)

Long silver girl who slipped easy and

early from the womb’s waters,

whose child-breath was a bird in a cage,

the inhaler in her fist her amulet,

grew tall, beautiful, caught her breath,

outran the hound, the hare, the myth,

the otter, salmon, swallow, hawk,

the river, the road, the track.

She texts again – this time Santiago.

She’s counting seven cities underfoot,

running the bloodlines of language, lineage,

for Ceridwen’s drop of gold, an ear of corn,

to leave the Battle of Marathon and run

through pain and joy with news

to the gates of a city,

to arrive at the finishing line, and say,

“Nenikékamen – We have won.”

Now this isn’t the usual fare for this blog, but I hope, if you find it you find something that you recognise (in yourself or in the world), that’ll touch your heart

and/or make you smile … one way or the other.