On Poetry And Football

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well I've finished (presumably thanks to my wait in the Bar and Grill on Sunday) Poetry Of The Thirties edited by Robin Skelton. It was the first poetry book I'd read for decades and I had forgotten that you have to read these books slooowly so that every word and meaning is captured. In the beginning there was a great deal of rereading so that there was a better chance of understanding what was being written.

Even so most of the poetry made me just mentally shrug my shoulders. As if I was saying, "is that all there is"? The vast majority of verse in this book aroused me to a state of depressed boredom.

There were, of course exceptions. John Betjeman reminded me why I liked him all those years ago. And if someone offered me a volume of the poetry of Lewis MacNeice I wouldn't be sniffy about it. On the other hand I really,really didn't like W H Auden.

And then there was Dylan Thomas. I don't want to read another Dylan Thomas poem again. I want to listen to them. He was the only poet where that thought occurred to me.

The next "car book" is this.

Clive James - Glued to the Box

This is the third volume of his TV critism between 1979 -1982. Should be fun.

So to the evening's football. It was the first opportunity since the Euro 2016 tournament began that I had the opportunity to wear this.

England

The wife watched the Wales game against Russia whilst I watched England Slovakia. Clearly she had the better time than I did with the dragons winning 3-0 and being top of their group. Although she did ask after eighty minutes why the game hadn't finished. I explained that it was football.....not rugby.Still genuinely was pleased for Wales. I've said before that in my view football was the bigger club sport here and if they continue to do well then that might be the case at a national level as well. And the Welsh Rugby Union would only have themselves to blame.

For me despite the ITV "Brexit" commentary - everything England did was good against weak Slovakia - England were disappointing. Slovakia just dug in, having obviously checked the durability of their Puma football shirts first.

Their goalkeeper seemed to follow the lead of his Swiss counterpart yesterday. Dressed luminously suggesting he too would be cycling back to his base afterwards.

But the commentary. "England fans are staying with their team" was one gem. What did he expect them to do? Suddenly support Austria? We also know the power of words. Slovakia were like "a boxer on the ropes" according to Glenn Hoddle. Had that been England then words like "disciplined" or "dogged" would have be used.

Will always believe....but was not encouraged.

Until the next time.

In Which I Take Kim Edwards To The Dentist And I Contribute To Murdoch's Coffers To Say Goodbye To The Boleyn

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well my long delayed appointment to the dentist eventually happened today (Tuesday). As you remember it was postponed twice when I was under the weather. I took the Penguin paperback I've been reading. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards whilst I was waiting to be called in.

Of course Dentistry has gone beyond the days where pre waiting entertainment constituted a few worn fashion and motoring magazines. Now they give you a TV to view. However it's daytime TV which means mainly something along the lines of property/emergency services/ benefit scroungers/antiques/collectables/people with domestic disputes resolved in a mock court or an emotional bear pit that make you feel you're watching prewatershed MMA/progammes you like but was first shown decades ago/ general cheap trash.

Which all meant that TV was not a distraction.

It is you know a very emotional book. I find myself more amenable to such novels the older I get. A couple of years ago I found myself surprisingly affected after reading Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan. If this was in my twenties I'd have just shrugged. Age does that to you.

Things went OK at the dentist. Especially as she had seen me make the effort to come earlier this year even though I was unwell (so that was cancelled). So when I admitted that dental hygiene was the last thing on my mind during the past month I was spared a lecture.

Rupert Murdoch is a little bit richer this month. For this afternoon I had Sky Sports added to my TV package with BT. It costs £22 a month and a month is all I want. Because tonight (Tuesday) West Ham were playing Manchester United in the last ever game being played at the Boleyn. And I had to watch it.

Before I go on, and give the impression that this is not so much a post more of a eulogy for a much loved stadium. I'm not going to make any excuses for the drunken apes that smashed the Manchester United coach on the way to the ground. It didn't matter if the result was 8-0 and gave the Boleyn a memorable send off it will be this that it will be remembered for. They've disgraced the team,the memories and the majority of the supporters. Not only that but rival fans will throw tonight at our faces for a long,long while.

That all being said. They are the team I have supported as a child. I've fond memories of going to home games. Think the one that sticks in my memory of the games I went to was the first home game after the death of Bobby Moore. It was against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Before the beginning of the match there were emotional scenes as a wreath of a West Ham football shirt with a number six on it being brought on the middle of the pitch

Remember Mike, (or was it Gavin?) Small missing a chance that I could have scored without my glasses on. Wolves scoring first. It was Steve Bull (I mean who else would it be for them in that period?). West Ham won though. One of the goals was a Julian Dicks penalty. And if there was one certainty in football at that time it was that goalkeepers never saved a Julian Dicks penalty as he kicked it with a force that I've never seen before or since. They just avoided the ball.

Also, as I've mentioned before. Friends and family aside the one thing I have truly missed about moving to Wales was West Ham United. So I wasn't going to miss this match.

I have a collection of twenty football shirts,which I'll explain about in another post (though probably twenty, to a real collector, will evoke laughter bordering on mockery). There are two rules to this collection. One is that full price is never paid and the other is that it's just one per team. Of course these rules are broken for West Ham (I've four of them). This was the one I bought for its original cost and it seemed fitting I'd wear it today.

The Legend that is Dagenham Motors

Well you probably know that West Ham won memorably after having been 2-1 down. It was a wonderful game. But the final show after the match to celebrate the history of the Boleyn did make me shed a few tears I must admit (though in a manly way of course).

Let me apologise to Manchester United and their supporters for the actions of a few drunken apes...but I'm happy we won.

Until the next time.