Bread and Circuses

Look over there! Goal!

It is never my intention to spoil anyone else’s enjoyment of life, but…

Bread and Circuses

We’re cheering our heroes! Supporting our boys!
We never quite win but we make a big noise.
Forget our track record, it’s hard to describe
the thrill of the chanting alongside our tribe.
This time will be different! It must be our turn
after sixty long years. (Will we never learn?)
We’re fired up with fervour and brimming with hope,
our anxiety level is high – can we cope?
We’re wearing the colours, we’ve bought the new strip,
we’ve gone into debt just to pay for this trip
to see twenty-two cocky young millionaires
kicking a bag of air.

We start out quite well as we usually do –
It’s coming home! And it’s long overdue.
But soon the elation begins to turn flat –
our formation is wrong, any fool can see that!
The manager’s clueless, it’s quite plain to see
(the FA should really give his job to me).
Opponents are cheats and the ref’s just a thief
but our boys will deliver, we have true belief.
It will not be pretty but all will be well,
though we face at least ninety tough minutes of hell
as twenty-two cocky young millionaires
kick a bag of air.

Overpaid pundits will smirk as they lift
their oversized mics to start work at their grift.
Parroting scripts they’ve been carefully taught,
they feign a regard for the women’s sport.
They’re Kicking Out Racism, Taking the Knee,
making sure pronouns are not only He.
Souls have been sold to The Beautiful Game –
just do as you’re told if you want wealth and fame.
But fans in the bars and the crowd at the ground
ignore all the rhetoric, turn up their sound
for twenty-two cocky young millionaires
kicking a bag of air.

Celebs have been given the VIP works,
their pact with the Devil including such perks.
Mick Jagger, the Beckhams, they’re all on parade.
Are they here to enjoy it, or have they been paid?
They add to the glamour that gives us this thrill
while taxpayers meet the security bill.
Whatever the price tag, we’re here for the ride,
the crowd’s in a frenzy of national pride.
No matter the parasites robbing us blind,
as long as there’s football we really don’t mind
that it’s twenty-two cocky young millionaires
just kicking a bag of air.

The circus now over, it’s rolled out of town,
the ringmaster richer, but who are the clowns?
It can’t be the players or management team
or TV executives peddling the dream,
it’s not politicians, it isn’t the press
who claim for themselves any hint of success.
The backers and sponsors make profits galore –
the winners don’t alter, whatever the score –
so, whether it’s rigged or whether it’s straight,
the people are mugged when they pass through the gate
to see twenty-two cocky young millionaires
just kicking a bag of stale air.