With the England men’s valiant effort now fallen by the wayside, I thought I would choose a poem about football—this one is “My Old Football” by J. Milton Hayes.
I live again my happier days in thoughts that football brings.
J. Milton Hayes (1884—1940)
It’s got a mouth, it’s got a tongue,
And oft when we’re alone I fancy that it speaks
To me of golden youth that’s flown.
Poem 447. My Old Football
You can keep your antique silver and your statuettes of bronze,
Your curios and tapestries so fine,
But of all your treasures rare there is nothing to compare
With this patched up, worn-out football pal o’ mine.
Just a patched-up worn-out football, yet how it clings!
I live again my happier days in thoughts that football brings.
It’s got a mouth, it’s got a tongue,
And oft when we’re alone I fancy that it speaks
To me of golden youth that’s flown.
It calls to mind our meeting,
‘Twas a present from the Dad.
I kicked it yet I worshipped it,
How strange a priest it had!
And yet it jumped with pleasure
When I punched it might and main:
And when it had the dumps
It got blown up and punched again.
It’s lived its life;
It’s played the game;
It’s had its rise and fall,
There’s history in the wrinkles of that worn-out football.
Caresses rarely came its way in babyhood ‘twas tanned.
It’s been well oiled, and yet it’s quite teetotal, understand.
It’s gone the pace, and sometimes it’s been absolutely bust,
And yet ‘twas always full of bounce,
No matter how ‘twas cussed.
He’s broken many rules and oft has wandered out of bounds,
He’s joined in shooting parties
Over other people’s grounds.
Misunderstood by women,
He was never thought a catch,
Yet he was never happier
Than when bringing off a match.
He’s often been in danger
Caught in nets that foes have spread,
He’s even come to life again
When all have called him dead.
Started on the centre,
And he’s acted on the square,
To all parts of the compass
He’s been bullied everywhere.
His aims and his ambitious
Were opposed by one and all,
And yet he somehow reached his goal
That plucky old football.
When schooling days were ended
I forgot him altogether,
And ’midst the dusty years
He lay a crumpled lump of leather.
Then came the threat’ning voice of War,
And games had little chance,
My brother went to do his bit
Out there somewhere in France.
And when my brother wrote he said,
‘Of all a Tommy’s joys,
There’s none compares with football.
Will you send one for the boys?’
I sent not one but many,
And my old one with the rest,
I thought that football’s finished now,
But no he stood the test.
Behind the lines they kicked him
As he’d never been kicked before.
Till they busted him and sent him back
A keepsake of the war.
My brother lies out there in France,
Beneath a simple cross,
And I seem to feel my football knows my grief,
And shares my loss.
He tells me of that splendid charge,
And then my brother’s fall.
In life he loved our mutual chum
That worn-out football.
Oh you can keep your antique silver
And your statuettes of bronze
Your curios and tapestries so fine
But of all your treasures rare
There is nothing to compare
With that patched-up worn-out football—
Pal o’ mine.
Hayes’s poem is ostensibly about a football but is actually about the memories it evokes.
The football itself is a battered old thing, frequently patched and perhaps a bit shabby but he would rather have it than all the antique marvels to be found in the world’s treasure houses because it brings back memories of happier days.
Despite the hard use he’s put it to during his youth, it always bounced back; even returning to life after being “absolutely bust”. Hayes gives a long list of the knocks, scuffs and kicks it has received though it has been well treated at other times.
When schooling came to an end, the football was forgotten—as these things of our youth often are—and it languished unthought-of: “a crumpled lump of leather” until the War comes when “games had little chance”. Chance enough—his brother, sent to join the British Tommys in the trenches, writes to ask for a football for him and his fellow soldiers and Hayes duly responds, not with a single ball but with many, the old faithful friend included.
Like the troops, the ball gamely plays its part until injured beyond repair, it’s invalided back to him to remind him of his fallen brother, a “Soldier of the Great War” as Kipling put it. The football recalls his brother’s courage and his fall in battle and seems to share his grief and loss.
He concludes as he began, by comparing it to “antique silver/And your statuettes of bronze/Your curios and tapestries so fine”—to his mind, none of them can hold a candle to the battered old football that holds such an incredible treasury of memories.
I like this poem because it describes so accurately the emotions that can be bound up in a simple object like a football—the times shared with others, the memories of those who are no longer with us, and the feelings we have when recalling all these things. I like the phrases he uses: the idea that although well-oiled, the football is teetotal (playing on the familiar phrase for being drunk) and the idea that since he worshipped it despite kicking it, he was an odd kind of priest for an odd kind of god. He puns on several football terms: “Caught in nets that foes have spread”, “Started on the centre”, “And yet he somehow reached his goal” and I really like that. Perhaps the best one though is “Misunderstood by women/He was never thought a catch/Yet he was never happier/Than when bringing off a match.”
Although football as a business seems rather cold and unfeeling, the emotions of those on the pitch and in the crowd are real enough and win or lose, they all carry away memories from such an encounter. As Grantland Rice put it in his poem “Alumnus Football” (a different kind of football to be sure):
“Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine,
Henry Grantland Rice, “Alumnus Football”.
Let every game’s end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.”
I have found only one performance of the poem on YouTube, and that is not the whole poem but it does have some charming footage of an old match. It’s a short by Pádraig OG.