Girls were just girls

just like us, the boys, only

with the knowledge

that they were better in the class room

than most of us in trousers, even

at eight, somehow more acute, articulate,

annoying but we had grown up

with each one of them

and in the school playground,

we at least could at least be heroes

with the ball at our feet, even if we felt

foolish in the classroom, our conversations

about the beautiful

game muted by constant spelling tests,

who cared how you spelt suspicious ,

he didn’t rank alongside the Dutch master

or play like he had stepped off the concrete

sweating beads and thinning breath

of a million goals scored

by David Barren, Andrew Ritches or Adam Sandford,

who cared about the finer points

of sewing, of history, what was education to us at eight,

we left that to the Girls,

girls were just girls, more adept at caring

what the teacher thought of them

and striving to be better than us, not

realising that they already were;

girls were just girls,

until the day Paula and Marie

walked into Moor Green School

and my life changed,

my first crush, school

became somewhere more than the ball

at dinner time, stopped by rain

on occasion but never by girl,

girls were just girls

till that day they walked in

to our match and the rule book

changed.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017