it's not just a game ...

 

  

'Always different, always the same', as the late, great John Peel used to say of his heroes, 'The Fall'.  Football's like that in so many ways. 

 

It's a ritual. The trip to the ground, buying a programme, sampling the rich greasy food and slurping down over-priced watery lager.  It's always the same, yet always different.

 

Watching the game on TV has none of the magic, none of the hopes and dreams as kick-off time approaches, none of the shared experience wedged in a constantly moving throng of people.

 

The whistle blows and we're off on yet another adventure together ...

 

 

 

dreams and nightmares - no. 107

the night-tripper ritual

Another sun sinks, carving light into the hillside as we wait. The night-tripper is close. Running his hand across the face of a grassy knoll. Teasing out music which floats on fast-chilling air.

Will he come?

Strange shadows emerge from priapic stones sunk ready into the hill plateau. They wait too for the night-tripper as one last cloud hovers. Lone star set into stone.

A seed-head spumes, one last rail against the dying sun.

Is he here yet?