The Rime of the Ancient Footballer

It is an Ancient Footballer,
And he shouts at all he sees.
'By thy short brown cigar and psychotic eye,
Why are you screaming at me?

ITV’s doors are opened wide,
And my team wants to win;
The tele’s on, the ref is ready,
You can hear the dulcet din.’

He holds him with his thuggish hand,
'There was a game,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, Nietzschean loon!'
Sharpish his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his savage eye—
The football fan idles still,
And listens like a weary adult
Very much against his will.

'The pitch was cleared, the men cheered,
But out of the sea came she!
She shone bright, and on the right
The sad old men did see.’

The Football-Fan he bared his breast,
It was but an idea;
But still spoke on that demented man,
The Ancient Footballer.

‘And now the WOKE-BLAST came, and we
Were tyrannous and strong:
We struck the woman with manly strength,
And chased her south along.

With straining thighs and manly muscles,
And forward bent our heads,
The woman drove fast, KANT! roared the blast,
But ITV-ward aye she fled.

And now there came VAR and woe,
And only men knew the score:
But no pleasing shapes of men we saw—
The women were more and more.

The women were here, the women were there,
The women were all around:
They cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like Notes from Underground!

At length did cross a pundit,
Thorough the fog he came;
As if he had been a Football Association soul,
We hailed him in God's name.

The pundit, he said ‘men are best,
For they can kick balls, from on high.
But alas, there is a threat!
The false truth of the female sex!’
We oldies hailed him far and wide;
His is the word, we cried!

And a cold north wind sprung up behind;
The Pundit did follow.
At every game, his words of wisdom,
Better than the women so shallow!

We loved that man, and others like him,
From Tate to Brand, and Tommy with a T.
Men! Such men!
The likes you never did see.’

'Seneca save thee, Ancient Footballer!
From the demons (praise be!)—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my Insta
I emptied ITV.

And I had done a hellish thing.
And it would bring me woe,
For I averred, when it came to birds,
I’d stooped much too low.

You see, Gary Neville is good,
Gary Lineker too.
All Garys great, all Garys small,
They’re men, one and all.

In picking a fight with ITV,
Over its women, on the tele,
I wanted to strike a blow for manhood,
And kicking balls, and being hard:
The things that define me.

But now as I pass from land to land,
I wish I had power of speech.
Because then I’d be coherent,
And this, my lesson, I would teach:

It’s a manly world of mannish muscle
And women can’t kick balls, no, not properly.
Keep your head down if you don’t agree,
Lest you get emptied—
Like my brain, my Insta, and me.

Alex Wade
CEO, Solicitor