Happy Wednesdays

Happy Wednesdays

It must have been 1965, We were having a lunchtime kick-about. ‘It’s Good News Week’ by Hedgehoppers’ Anonymous Was playing on someone’s transistor Just behind the goal nearest the school, Someone was puffing out on the wing, And crossed hopefully towards the edge of the box, Where I had strayed, and where I stood, Predicting the precise path of the ball. It came, as anticipated, at waist height: I leapt from the ground before the ball’s arrival, Levitating horizontally a metre up in the air, To meet the ball on the volley, And send it hurtling into the top left hand corner. I landed on the ground, elated, It was the best goal I had ever scored, A perfect harmony of prediction, execution and ambience, And it was all so perfect that I didn’t even celebrate, I just stood there in a Zen state of bliss, Knowing that such an immaculate conception Only happens once in A Good News Week Lifetime.

But now we are starting a Rodborough Walking Football Group,

And on Wednesday mornings along Butterrow,

I walk the talk and talk the walk

With a perfect harmony of diverse friends,

And, sometimes, it’s like being thirteen again,

You watch yourself pass, move, cross, shoot, score,

And you stand there in a Zen state of bliss, Knowing that such an immaculate conception Happens every happy Wednesday morning

Eleven to noon, along the lane at Rodborough.