poetic licence

Martin Newell
Wednesday 27 May 1998 23:02 BST
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At a conference this week about the psychology of football, one theory was offered that the game is a sex substitute. This information may be of interest to those of us who dislike football but like sex

If You Don't Want to Know the Score Now, Look Away

The undulating grainy mush

Of football on the telly

A commentator struggling with the names

Janacek, De Grootny,

Wozcnienski, Vermicelli

Plus highlights and the goals of other games

I do not like it. Couldn't care

I do not know the players or the clubs

I leave that passive privilege

To those red-eared bores

Who huddle round gigantic screens in pubs

In crippling shallow matinees

Their simian oohs and ahhs

Spill out of open doors as I go past.

A man not into football

Is a pervert come from Mars

Forbidden manly ritual and outcast

I'm starved of soaps and serials

In desolate saloons

While Hindsight in a blazer rattles on

The sound of soccer boredom

Fills the summer afternoons

Hallowed be thy name, for it is Ron.

The only type of soccer

I would ever wish to watch

A dream I fear is slightly out of reach

Would be Transvestite Junkies

Versus Biker Queens on Scotch

Playing five-a-side by moonlight on the beach

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