(If you don't know who Lev Yashin is you soon will.  He is the "poster boy" for this year's World Cup. As a schoolboy who played in goal I wanted to be him. Everyone did)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/yashin

 

It’s commonly known a group’s drummer is never quite right in the head

And likewise a football team’s goalie, of which something similar is said.

And it’s opportune now we’re in Russia and false siren hopes are up

That England will do themselves justice by winning the football World Cup

That I tell the saga within me before it’s too late and I’m dead

How it is that I came to end up sleeping in Lev Yashin’s bed.

 

For all but the few cognoscenti an explanatory note might be good

Though out of respect for The Spider I questioned myself if I should.

To call Lev Yashin a “keeper” devalues the whole ‘keeper thing

He was The Consumate ‘Keeper – the benchmark, the template, The King.

“Black Panther”, “Black Cat” or “Black Spider”, black jersey, black cap that he wore

The only goalkeeper in football ever to win “Ballon d’Or”.

 

So where do I feature in all this? Well, wind back some 45 years

To a student at Durham’s Grey College – his government grant spent on beers.

One night after copious sessions and wasted, let it be said,

Some mates decamped to my bedroom; Big Zig then leapt on my bed.

Big Zig was my 2nd row forward and not far off 6 foot 4

The classical mix of muscle and lard – the bed then crashed to the floor.

The following day feeling sheepish, exuding my guilt and my gloom,

I trotted out loads of excuses, but got a new bed for my room.

 

Now let me go back even further by bringing Lev into the mix

The World Cup had come home to England in summer 1966.

The group games were played in the regions to share out the land’s football feast

The Soviet Union and Yashin had billets based in the North East.

As it happened they stayed at Grey College, the whole of Team USSR

And Lev being a bit of a whopper, they’d need a big bed for The Tsar.

They brought in a cot for The Spider in which he might stretch out his pins

Without a normal sized mattress finishing short at his shins.

 

So my bed when it came was a monster, seven foot long I would bet,

Room enough, easy, for Coopey and any young bints he might get.

You’ve put 2 and 2 together and realised Coopey’s passion

Didn’t derive from the “Broon ale” but rather from Moscow’s Lev Yashin.

Yes, there’s women around in their 60’s  and it’s never entered their head

(Although I confess sometimes I did!) that they’ve humped in Lev Yashin’s bed.