World Cup - Three Lions

A few World Cup memories.

 

I was there in sixty-six.  By ‘there’ I mean sat on the floor doing some artwork with my World Cup Willie colouring set, in front of a black and white television witnessing my mother go through every emotion. Eventually, someone on tv said, ‘They think it’s all over, it is now’ and my mother was ecstatic.  I must have inherited my love of football from her, and my maternal grandfather. We were in our upstairs sitting room in the pub on South Promenade. No big screens in pubs back in the sixties and no colour television for us at that time. Sport in pubs was limited to snooker and darts.

I didn’t follow the 1970 tournament. We were still in the same pub. I was sick of hearing ‘Back Home’ filtering upwards from the jukebox. My mother had passed away the year before. Life was hard and things were changing.

In 1978, my most significant World Cup memory is Archie Gemmill’s brilliant goal for Scotland against Holland. It was breath-taking and is still up there with my favourite goals of all time.

The 1990 World Cup didn’t have my full attention. It was there in the background while I sat at the sewing machine making wedding outfits for my page-boys and a tiny bridesmaid dress for yes, a tiny bridesmaid, my baby niece. There was cheering, beer cans being snapped open and I found myself singing Nessun Dorma a lot. England had fourth place. Now it was time to concentrate on our wedding.

I can still feel the sorrow from 1998. David Beckham and that petulant kick at Diego Simeone – I still can’t believe he was red carded, as he was fouled by Simeone in the first place and I can hardly type it, twenty years later. Football is such a passionate game. I was so upset that England lost out to Argentina on penalties and the first World Cup that our son was old enough to take an interest in ended for England the way it did.

Fast forward to 2014 and as always in our house, we have a chart up on the wall, flags flying from the windows and cars, England shirts at the ready and a Panini sticker album. It was a non-event, for us anyway. My husband was ill in hospital, though well enough to don an England shirt and watch a couple of matches in the day-room. By the time he was recovered enough to come home, the World Cup was all over for England.

So, here goes for World Cup 2018. In a few hours it might be all over again, but hopefully not. I’d like to see Gareth Southgate do well and I’d like to see this young, talented team progress. I’ll go and have a word with the three lions on my shirt.

 

 

I’m With These 2018 Heroes

 

The kitchen floor needs mopping

And the beds are left unmade

But I’m not doing housework

While there’s matches being played.

 

Look at the perfect pitches,

Neatly mowed and lush and green,

Ready for the world’s finest

To give us the best we’ve seen.

 

So bring it on, DeBruyne,

Ronaldo and Messi, too.

Fellaini and Suarez

I’ll be watching all of you.

 

A huge shout out for England,

For Harry Kane and the boys,

I’ve taught my grandkids to cheer

And to fill my house with noise.

 

Fav’rites Rashford and Lingard,

And my ‘Broadway’ Danny Rose,

I’m loving every moment

With these 2018 heroes.

 

It isn’t just the World Cup,

There’s tennis going on, too.

I’m sharing the time wisely,

It’s the only thing to do.

 

So, come on Kyle Edmund

What an impressive young man!

Wimbledon and I salute you.

Keep giving the best you can.

  

Pamela Winning 2018.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x 

 

 

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Three Lions on a Shirt........Shivers Down my Spine

by Sheilagh Dyson

Call me a sentimental, idealistic, over-optimistic, unrealistic fool, but there’s a song that sends shivers down my spine. It did at the time and it still does now. Three Lions, the magnificent opus created by the Lightning Seeds, Baddiel and Skinner in anticipation of Euro ’96, when football was coming home to England. It fades in, rising to a crescendo – ‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, …..football’s coming home.’ This time was going to be different. Thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming. All the bitter disappointments, the ignominy of non-qualification, the Hand of God – all would be swept away this time in a glorious climax at Wembley, when England would at last reclaim the mantle of champions, the three lions passant would again tower imperiously over the football world. Football was coming home to our country, where it all began. Nothing could stop us this time. (Germany, on penalties, in the semi-final, actually. They could.)

            It is in the nature of a football supporter to be a blinkered, romantic who has an unshakeable conviction that it will be better next time – a triumph of hope over experience, if ever there was one. This is applicable to all levels of football, but most of all to England, whose long suffering supporters face each tournament with renewed certainty that this time……Meanwhile, the over-hyped, overpaid, mercenary primadonnas who carry all our hopes and dreams once more flatter to deceive, let us down and another two years of national navel-gazing, anger and resentment beckon – but only till next time, when the hopelessly misplaced optimism ramps up again.

‘All that I know surely about morality and the obligations of man, I owe to football.’ Albert Camus said. What would he have made of today’s game, with its gangster chairmen, culture of celebrity, grotesque unaffordable wages, the diving, the cynicism and the bloated agents calling all the shots? It’s still a beautiful game though, for all that, but sadly one that is now far removed from its grass roots. For anyone interested, please try Gary Imlach’s excellent book ‘My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes’ which tells the story of his father’s experiences as a professional footballer in the 1950s and early 1960s, when footballers received the wages of a worker and lived in the same streets as their supporters. Compare and contrast!

I will finish with two poems. The first is a haiku I wrote in anger about Blackpool FC’s relegation from the Premier League. The second is a commentary on the game today and is by Ivan Donn Carswell.

Lament for Blackpool FC

The tangerine dream-

Smashed by a dark juggernaut

The Premier League

To win a game

by Ivan Donn Carswell

How do you win a football game? Not by skill alone or clever plays,
in modern days the game has changed and subterfuge and actors
ways will pave the path to glory. Fitness pays a fair reward to keep
a fleetness in the feet, a clearness in the head, and special food
and clever drinks recharge the cells when batteries are low or dead.
But referees are certain keys to all the famous victories.
Linguistic tricks of lunatics in soccer strip are even matched by
hieroglyphs from coaches dressed in two piece suits, with
hearts on sleeves, grieving for the chances missed, pleading
with the referee for plays he did or didn’t see, for ploys that failed
to turn his head, for verdicts made and judgements dread.
And referees are equal keys to infamy or certain fame.
Then there’s the crowd, a seething throng of attitude and energy,
baying for their chosen team, living in a plastic dream of cinematic
death or glory; dressed in kind and cheering on, drinking, singing,
chanting long and loud the songs expressing hopes and fears of masses
pressed in servitude, praying for a famous win, praying to the soccer rood.
But referees are willing keys to all the prayers and eulogies.
How do you win? Why do you care? Theatrics grimace everywhere,
a game so crafted for the stage with pathos, bathos, great despair,
actors playing parts and reading scripts with human traits, protagonists,
antagonists, depicting gallant characters with artful flair,
it’s all encompassed there, entwined in referee maturity, so grin
and bear it friend, you see, it looks so good on home TV.

© I.D. Carswell

     

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