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Home Features

Losing Streak

Pink by Pink
October 25, 2018
in Features

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STEPHEN WATT waxes lyrical about breaking the losing streak in the latest entry into our ‘What Football Means To Me’ series.

Three-nil down before half-time

pissing into a cast iron pig trough

while leaning against

an unsanitary, magnolia toilet wall,

***

the losing streak slithers in

beneath my skin, and settles.

***

Apathy is apparent.

***

Supporters slew phones, twiddle radios

for other scores, harvest pie crumbs

from scarves, percolating snores

as wave after wave of attack upon us

dispatches chills into the bones

that we may be witnessing a club record score –

***

against.

***

It costs a lot of money to feel this grim.

To never win.

***

To sit on mild steel and plastic,

bereaved of blood and heat

confronted with parts of you which shrivel

after each successive hefty defeat

while the old lad seated next to me

smuggles a cider-charged colostomy bag

into the stadium.

***

On the plus side,

at least he’s abstaining from popping Valium.

***

Reduced crowds culminate in razor-sharp winds

lacerating new fingers

and assisting the ball-boys

with the enthusiasm of a grave-digger.

***

Let’s try keep it below double figures, lads.

***

And then, it happens.

Someone scuffs the mudded ball off an outstretched knee;

an O.G, and the goal is given.

One-nil. Oh holy… Games-a-bogey.

We’ve won! The run is done. All is forgiven.

***

Football is loved again.

STEPHEN WATT IS THE POET-IN-RESIDENCE AT DUMBARTON FC. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER @StephenWattSpit

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