Iâm far from respectable. You should have heard what someone said about me the other day.â
âRight.â Jimmy scoffed and Si could understand why. He hadnât even convinced himself. Perhaps todayâs kids had just realised earlier than his generation that life no longer offered anybody an easy ride. Nothing could be taken for granted anymore. Perhaps they were just more on the ball than he had ever been and his grumbling was a pathetic attempt to express envy? Si pushed this thought to one side.
âWhen I was seventeen I wanted to be a professional soccer player. And there I am. Well, I reckon being a soccer player is pretty creative.â
âCould be,â agreed Si.
âI mean, when I went round that Bury defender the other day and lobbed the keeper the write-up in
The Sun
described it as poetry in motion.â
âYeah, it was pretty good,â said Si supportively, although heâd not seen the goal and
The Sun
had devoted less than fifty words to the match. He wanted to build up Jimmyâs confidence. Somehow, although his friend was a talented striker, heâd been overlooked by all the top rank teams. Now, at twenty-seven, Jimmyâs time was running out.
It had not escaped Si that as Jimmyâs career seemed to have plateaued and, barring miracles, was unlikely to progress much further, his own star was rising quickly. Si felt sorry for his friend and slightly embarrassed by the good luck he had experienced recently. If only Jimmy could get the break he deserved. After all, this season heâd averaged a goal a match and was top scorer in the SecondDivision, but as far as anybody at Millwall football club knew, no First Division or Premiership clubs had expressed any interest in signing him. Although
The Sun
described him as a poet of the feet today, in five years time Jimmy would be nowhere. If he was lucky, heâd be looking to open a pub somewhere, cashing in on past glories and resigning himself to maudlin stories of what could have been. The thought was sobering.
âIf I score a few more like that, maybe I should publish a video of my greatest goals and call it
Jimmy Sweenyâs Poetry Collection
.â
â
Anthology
. Sounds better. More intellectual.
Doctor Jimmyâs Poetry Anthology
. Or better still, how about
The Collected Poems of James Sweeny
?â
âYeah, great,â grinned Jimmy. âThatâs great. But itâd have to be Jimmy. Not James. Nobody, not even my mum, calls me James.â
They smiled foolishly at each other, united by a bond of friendship that spanned more than two decades. But in their hearts both knew that nobody but the keenest Millwall fan would buy the video and, rather like Jimmy himself, it would end up on the Woolworthâs remaindered shelf, undesired, unsold. Even if Jimmy was the top scorer in the Second Division. These days only the Premiership clubs and their players mattered to the public. And, for the moment, Si seemed to have as much chance of signing for one of them as Jimmy.
~
Si shuffled the morning papers. Mad cow this and mad cow that. Had the world gone crazy? A few spongy brain cells and the bottom had dropped out of the beef market.
âGovernment Beefing About Mad Cow Banâ trumpeted one tabloid. The picture beneath it showed the Agriculture Minister wearing a pair of bullâs horns. Even the broadsheets had been infected by the hysteria. Si chucked the pile of newspapers under his desk in disgust.
âWrite about anything but bloody cows,â Dougy had instructed him last week when panic first swept through the newsprint. It had been like a wave of sewage pushing all before it. Even serious editors had been covered in the effluence.
Thank God he worked on the Diary. Otherwise he too would have been out pestering politicians about whether they would feed their families beef from now on. The level to which journalism could sink was distressing. Pandering to
âRight.â Jimmy scoffed and Si could understand why. He hadnât even convinced himself. Perhaps todayâs kids had just realised earlier than his generation that life no longer offered anybody an easy ride. Nothing could be taken for granted anymore. Perhaps they were just more on the ball than he had ever been and his grumbling was a pathetic attempt to express envy? Si pushed this thought to one side.
âWhen I was seventeen I wanted to be a professional soccer player. And there I am. Well, I reckon being a soccer player is pretty creative.â
âCould be,â agreed Si.
âI mean, when I went round that Bury defender the other day and lobbed the keeper the write-up in
The Sun
described it as poetry in motion.â
âYeah, it was pretty good,â said Si supportively, although heâd not seen the goal and
The Sun
had devoted less than fifty words to the match. He wanted to build up Jimmyâs confidence. Somehow, although his friend was a talented striker, heâd been overlooked by all the top rank teams. Now, at twenty-seven, Jimmyâs time was running out.
It had not escaped Si that as Jimmyâs career seemed to have plateaued and, barring miracles, was unlikely to progress much further, his own star was rising quickly. Si felt sorry for his friend and slightly embarrassed by the good luck he had experienced recently. If only Jimmy could get the break he deserved. After all, this season heâd averaged a goal a match and was top scorer in the SecondDivision, but as far as anybody at Millwall football club knew, no First Division or Premiership clubs had expressed any interest in signing him. Although
The Sun
described him as a poet of the feet today, in five years time Jimmy would be nowhere. If he was lucky, heâd be looking to open a pub somewhere, cashing in on past glories and resigning himself to maudlin stories of what could have been. The thought was sobering.
âIf I score a few more like that, maybe I should publish a video of my greatest goals and call it
Jimmy Sweenyâs Poetry Collection
.â
â
Anthology
. Sounds better. More intellectual.
Doctor Jimmyâs Poetry Anthology
. Or better still, how about
The Collected Poems of James Sweeny
?â
âYeah, great,â grinned Jimmy. âThatâs great. But itâd have to be Jimmy. Not James. Nobody, not even my mum, calls me James.â
They smiled foolishly at each other, united by a bond of friendship that spanned more than two decades. But in their hearts both knew that nobody but the keenest Millwall fan would buy the video and, rather like Jimmy himself, it would end up on the Woolworthâs remaindered shelf, undesired, unsold. Even if Jimmy was the top scorer in the Second Division. These days only the Premiership clubs and their players mattered to the public. And, for the moment, Si seemed to have as much chance of signing for one of them as Jimmy.
~
Si shuffled the morning papers. Mad cow this and mad cow that. Had the world gone crazy? A few spongy brain cells and the bottom had dropped out of the beef market.
âGovernment Beefing About Mad Cow Banâ trumpeted one tabloid. The picture beneath it showed the Agriculture Minister wearing a pair of bullâs horns. Even the broadsheets had been infected by the hysteria. Si chucked the pile of newspapers under his desk in disgust.
âWrite about anything but bloody cows,â Dougy had instructed him last week when panic first swept through the newsprint. It had been like a wave of sewage pushing all before it. Even serious editors had been covered in the effluence.
Thank God he worked on the Diary. Otherwise he too would have been out pestering politicians about whether they would feed their families beef from now on. The level to which journalism could sink was distressing. Pandering to
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