Under a cloak of villainy,

most especially in my cups,

I'll show and tell and know damned well

that I shall reveal too much,

shame myself with a heavy touch

and lose what gravity I possess.

I'll shave my head and bare my chest,

display the tattoo on my shoulder:

"seeking seasoned ticket-holder,

bloodied and bruised in claret and blues,

or just a temporary fixture".

I'll draw your picture in The Upper Trinity,

someone to share indignity with me;

there are places where The Trinity

meets The Holte, fences I can vault,

tunnels I can dig, chasms I can leap,

corners from where I can get a cross in,

boxes I can post a riposte in.

 

I should be studying The Classics,

swotting Homer and The Odyssey:

instead I'm huddled with the masses

watching The Simpsons and a referee

afraid to make unpopular decisions,

who disallows what little we are given,

and says it isn't cricket,

or poetry or something.

My scansion scrapes the stanchion

or goes high, wide and handsome;

I was offside anyway

so it didn't really happen;

we come away with nothing,

we poor players of the passes,

for all our sweat and fret.

You raise glasses in remembrance

of some Golden Age within us

and I drain the very dregs

just to forget.

 

Red wine, white, rose or mulled:

we wish our passions to be dulled,

or lulled into a false sense of excitement;

gulled to think this season shall be different.

To live the dream and feign amnesia,

to drown in cups that make it easier to forget;

and the season hasn't even kicked off yet!

We shan't be vying for honours,

we are not Gooners but Goners,

Little Englanders to the Big Spenders,

Court Jesters to Manchesters,

out of contention long before Christmas

and all that will lift us

from the gloom of mid-table obscurity

is a thrashing of Birmingham City.

 

We laugh at their fate and The Albion;

Viagra followed by Valium;

the boom and bust, the concerted thrust

and the embarrassed limp from the stadium.

Back to the pop and fizz of CocaColaship:

the yo and yo in pursuit of the plateau

on which we're sat;

but we do not even have that!

Who can celebrate coming seventh or eighth?

Who compose praise of the commonplace?

We're milestones on another's march,

a scenic start, points to pick up,

the site of an occasional hiccup.

So many shots and nothing in the net!

Have you got the bottle?

There is much to forget.