CF TRADIDZIONALE KISELEFF 1907

Nişte pungaşi pe stadioane

Managerul nostru mi-a pus azi în braţe o carte de poezie (Kid) aparută la prestigioasa Faber and Faber - Simon Armitage este autorul. Managerului nostru, englez get-beget, i s-a părut dezolant să descopere o poezie dedicată fotbalului. De fapt, în poezie e vorba despre doi pungaşi care-şi fac veacul şi campionatul pe stadioane. Fie aceasta şi un semnal editorial, dacă nu un semn că mîine nu ne dorim nici cît negru sub unghie să păcălim fotbalul.

Brassneck

United, mainly,
every odd Saturday,
or White Hart Lane for a worthwhile away game.
Down in the croeds at the grounds where the bread is:
the gold, the plastic,
the cheque-books, the readies,

the biggest fish
or the easiest meat,
or both. Consider that chap we took last week:
we turned him over and walked off the terrace
with a grand exactly
in dog-eared tenners;

takings like that
don’t get reported.
Carter, he’s a sort of junior partner;
it’s two seasons now since we first teamed up
in the Stretford End
in the FA Cup;

it was all United
when I caught him filching
my cigarette case, and he felt me fishing
a prial of credit cards out of his britches.
Since that day
we’ve worked these pitches.

We tend to kick off
by the hot dog vans
and we’ve lightened a good many fair-weather fans
who haven’t a clue where to queue for tickets.
Anything goes, if it’s
loose we lift it.

At City last year
in the derby match
we did the right thing with a smart-looking lass
who’d come unhitched in the crush from her friend.
We escorted her out
of the Platt Lane End.

arm in arm
along the touchline,
past the tunnel and out through the turnstile
and directed her on to a distant police car.
I did the talking
and Carter fleeced her.

As Carter once put it:
when we’re on the ball
we can clean someone out, from a comb to a coil,
and we need nine eyes to watch for the coppers
though at Goodison Park
when I got collared

two bright young bobbies
took me into the toilets
and we split the difference. Bent policeman;
there’s always a couple around when you need them.
It’s usually Autumn
when we losen our fingers
at the Charity Shield
which is pretty big business
though semis and finals are birthdays and Christmas.
Hillsborough was a different ball game of course;
we’d started early,
then saw what the score was,

so we turned things in
as a mark of respect.
(I’m referring here to a red and blue wreath;
there are trading standards,
even among thieves).

Carter keeps saying
he’d be quick to wager
that worse things go on in the name of wages,
but I’ve let Carter know there’s a place and a time

to say as we
speak,
speak as we find.

Speaking of Carter,
and not that I mind,
he thinks I’m a touch on the gingery side:
my voice a little too tongued and grooved,
my locks a little
too washed and groomed,

my cuticles tenderly
pushed back and pruned,
both thumbnails capped with a full half-moon,
each fingernail manicured, pare and polished…
We can wowork hand in hand if we stick to the rules:
he keeps his cunt-hooks out of my wallet,
I keep my tentacles
out of his pocket.