Bradford
Park Avenue
The rush, the dash, the sheer anticipation
The crush, the crowds, the queuing
Through clanking turnstiles underneath the club-house
Thrust out behind the terraces and the stands
Past the changing rooms and press-box
Then the wind, the rain, the smell of fresh-cut grass
The excitement, the hopes of youth
Leaning on the barriers to stop the squash
The shouting and the chanting
The insults and the ranting
With scarves and caps and rattles
The cheering, the jeering and the whistling
Pies and pints and cigarettes
Questioning the parentage of the bloke in black
Screaming at the team to get a bloody move on
Shoot! Pass! Dribble! Man on!!
The wingers drifting down the touchline
Ghosting crosses to the middle
For the centre-forward to rise above the rest
And bury the bladder in the back of the net
Or else the team pushed back beyond the centre circle
On the back foot, into our own half
Where our big defensive line
The centre-halves and full-backs
Commit their crunching tackles
To protect our stopper in the goal
Appealing in wide-eyed amazement
Against every dubious decision
As their opponents bite the mud
The pitch is green, the lines are white
The green and white stripes of The Avenue
The stadium since deserted
Empty echoes of long-gone noise
Crumbling concrete and cracking paint
Rotten wood and glass-less windows
Rain leaking through the patchwork roofs
The water puddling around old crumpled stanchions
Amid the rubbish, the rust and the rot
Tumbledown terraces and tumbleweed growth
The pitch an unkempt meadow
Weeds taller than goalposts
Wasteland of a bygone age
One end of a city that died
The fate of a football club in crisis
Relegated and abandoned
The penalty conceded
Left back in the sixties
And the disappointment of old age
The pitch no longer green, the lines no longer white
The ghostly green and faded white stripes of The Avenue
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