Naughton Park (1932-1997) R. I. P. : Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:12 pm
Hoops of black and white, kindred bob-hats and scarves.Turnstiles click a chorus to the music of money; shuffling feet
sense the old mud-paths leading to tarmac and stone;
vocal myriad, smell of ale,
ubiquitous hot-dog treat.
Granite stairs lift you to the umbrellaed hubbub.
Floodlights like sentinels,
guard your niche in your elite.
Pungent wintergreen heralds warriors with greased and shiny faces.
13 imagined our lucky number, sometimes not, sometimes grave.
A game of beauty played, by gazelle and bison
and mammoth insight.
Our extended clan as vital in loss as flags of victory waved.
Swaying fortunes tagged by the thunder of favour;
the sound of silence amid,
pipe and cigar smoke curling through the aroma of aftershave.
An end where a clock ticks in its own world, oh, tempus fugit.
Another records not the fallen just precious points,
on a scoreboard stood proud
at the firmament's moods and wrath.
Gains defended by the stretch and grind of muscles and joints.
In two halves no quarter meekly given nor taken;
in this true sport of kings,
on a real field of dreams now only nostalgia anoints.
This ground of memories of Sundays, nights and other days.
Where our tribe won and lost in no phoney war.
On our sward of millions of blades of green.
Cocooned by terraces of concrete,
timber stand, and the roar
of our horde; neath those roofs of grey
asleep in arms of gelid steel.
Now a sepia-print in the mind; oh we heard, oh how we saw!
by Norton
