{"id":276,"date":"2006-06-16T14:50:16","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T13:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/06\/16\/football-poetry\/"},"modified":"2006-06-16T14:57:26","modified_gmt":"2006-06-16T13:57:26","slug":"football-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/2006\/06\/16\/football-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not much peotry here in recent times, for which I apologise. My excuses are threefold. Firstly the weather. I’m lazy enough at the best of times, but the kind of summer days with which we’ve recently been blessed dent my productivity even further. Secondly, my current poetic reading is a recent translation of Dante’s Infero<\/a>, by Ciaran Carson. Very fine it is too, but the epic form doesn’t really lend itself to a blog posting. Finally, the World Cup. All other matters must take a back seat while the world’s greatest sporting occasion <\/a>is in progress. <\/p>\n

To keep things ticking over poetry-wise, while not losing sight of more important matters, I thought I’d do a post on a football poem. Sadly, this most lyrical of sports has generated much doggeral, but precious little in the way of true poetry. What I did find was delightful vignette from Billy Bragg. Entitled God’s Footballer<\/a>, it’s on his 1991 album “Don’t Try This At Home” which also contains such classics as “Accident Waiting To Happen” and “Sexuality”. Here, the football stadium becomes the church, the fans the choir (for the uninitiated, Molineax is the home ground of Wolverhampton Wanderers). At first this seems like a cartoon, God’s Footballer no more than an eccentric local “character”, but on a second reading a certain heroism comes through. Though there’s a suggestion that the glum work of knocking on doors is a come-down after the glories of the football pitch, there’s also an admiration for our hero’s puritan abjuration of glory, even if Bragg can’t quite shake the suspicion that to thrill and delight on a Saturday afternoon is truly to do the Lord’s work. As John Lennon once sang, so Bragg suggests, “A Working-Class Hero is something to be”.<\/p>\n

God’s footballer hears the voices of angels
\nAbove the choir at Molineux
\nGod’s footballer stands on the doorstep
\nAnd brings the Good News of the Kingdom to come
\nWhile the crowd sings ‘Rock of Ages’
\nThe goals bring weekly wages
\nYet the glory of the sports pages
\nIs but the worship of false idols and tempts him not<\/p>\n

God’s footballer turns on a sixpence
\nAnd brings the Great crowd to their feet in praise of him
\nGod’s footballer quotes from the Gospels
\nWhile knocking on doors in Black Country back streets
\nHe scores goals on a Saturday
\nAnd saves souls on a Sunday
\nFor the Lord says these are the Last Days
\nPrepare thyself for the Judgement yet to come<\/p>\n

His career will be over soon
\nAnd the rituals of a Saturday afternoon
\nBid him a reluctant farewell
\nFor he knows beyond the sport lies the spiritual<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not much peotry here in recent times, for which I apologise. My excuses are threefold. Firstly the weather. I’m lazy enough at the best of times, but the kind of summer days with which we’ve recently been blessed dent my productivity even further. Secondly, my current poetic reading is a recent translation of Dante’s Infero, by Ciaran Carson. Very fine it is too, but the epic form doesn’t really lend itself to a blog posting. Finally, the World Cup. All other matters must take a back seat while the world’s greatest sporting occasion is in progress. To keep things ticking over poetry-wise, while not losing sight of more important matters, I thought I’d do a post on a football poem. Sadly, this most lyrical of sports has generated much doggeral, but precious little in the way of true poetry. What I did find was delightful vignette from Billy Bragg. Entitled God’s Footballer, it’s on his 1991 album “Don’t Try This At Home” which also contains such classics as “Accident Waiting To Happen” and “Sexuality”. Here, the football stadium becomes the church, the fans the choir (for the uninitiated, Molineax is the home ground of Wolverhampton Wanderers). At first this seems like a cartoon, God’s Footballer no more than an eccentric local “character”, but on a second reading a certain heroism comes through. Though there’s a suggestion that the glum work of knocking on doors is a come-down after the glories of the football pitch, there’s also an admiration for our hero’s puritan abjuration of glory, even if Bragg can’t quite shake the suspicion that to thrill and delight on a Saturday afternoon is truly to do the Lord’s work. As John Lennon once sang, so Bragg suggests, “A Working-Class Hero is something to be”. God’s footballer hears the voices of angels Above the choir at Molineux God’s footballer stands on the doorstep And brings the Good News of the Kingdom to come While the crowd sings ‘Rock of Ages’ The goals bring weekly wages Yet the glory of the sports pages Is but the worship of false idols and tempts him not God’s footballer turns on a sixpence And brings the Great crowd to their feet in praise of him God’s footballer quotes from the Gospels While knocking on doors in Black Country back streets He scores goals on a Saturday And saves souls on a Sunday For the Lord […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,215],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-poetry","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}