England

England the boys chant! Just a fuzzy whisper coming through my radio, a crackle, I shift the dial and hear a clear roar! The commentator’s high pitched voice “Rooney’s ball deflected of the bar.” The roar of the crowed, overpowers the frustration of my confinement. The terraces choir brings me freedom and takes me back to a time I to stood on the terraces with my mates, wagged off work with a doggie excuses to watch what is left of my little England. The eleven men true who fight with a football for me and you! No bombs and destruction just guts and skill. Another roar from the crowed! My heart thumps! Have we scored and speared the bull of Ecuador? I tilt my head my ear touches the homemade radio.
Alas No! Cole brought down by some doggie defender who’s blood is running high in the game of his life! What a night would it be … to slay the mighty lions three!
Won’t happen.
Somehow deep inside I know we will win. “What’s the score?” Billy two guns grunts from his bunk were he wallows in a methadone and skunk induced state. He hates football! Says it for faggots overpaid grown men chasing a ball around.
If only it was just that, there is history to football a past of battles fought and lost, the highs the lows, the skill that flows. The drama on and off the pitch. The fields of dreams that take a street kid out of his perpetual poverty. Oh football my guiding knight that’s kept my life so warm and bright.
My radio burst into life! A foul! Beckhem a set play roaring crowds no goal from this today.
The crowed sinks, my sprits to, locked in my cell my hell thinking of the red white and blue. Football oh football! Oh England bring it home.
The click of a Officers boots alert me to his presence. I huddle to my radio and finger the dial, my breath held. I listen and in that moment the cell melts. I find my self on the pitch another free kick and David is taking it.
The run the kick the ball that skips, the goalie dives his hands stretch for it, a bounce it’s in!
Yes I scream!
The door opens and the officer is on me. Hr drags my radio from my hand. The door slams. I don’t care for a split second my radio took me there! Oh England!