Stratford Park Theatre of Dreams
I love Wednesday night’s walking football:
The gathering dusk of late October:
Floodlights lighting the way to goal,
While a moon rises high in the sky,
Illuminating childhood memories
Of yesteryear’s Autumn Almanack:
Playing marbles, conkers, knock-door-runaway,
Or kicking a football under street lamps,
Or collecting wood for the street bonfire,
Always ceremonially lit, each year,
By George Hunt, the Swindon Town right back
(Who also owned a car and a garage,
Down the road at number 53),
Holding aloft, his brandish of authority.
And this is what passes through your mind
As you pass the ball or take your turn in goal,
At Walking Football on Wednesday evenings,
At Stratford Park’s Theatre of Dreams:
‘For it’s all part of our Autumn Almanac’.
But, ‘Coming events cast shadows before’,
And next week we football-hibernate:
Playing inside in the heat of the night,
As we measure the slow trudge of winter
Through the darkness of the coming months –
Until the moon of the vernal equinox:
When, once more, it will be Happy Wednesdays,
And the Onion Bag will swell again.