There is a shelter in the park that acted as a goal,
the football aimed squarely at whoever was unfortunate enough
to act as the keeper, imagining they were Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence
or in my case the great Gordon Banks or even
Bert Trautman.
Not that I often went in goal, I didn’t like diving
on to bare concrete and seeing my T-shirt
ripped to shreds in a strange, weird way of portraying machismo.
I made allowances when some of the girls that we knew
One of the great seats of learning may have been a few short miles away.
An eternity on a bike but on clear Oxfordshire days the journey was the best.
Past Wendlebury, past Stella’s house, a journey I undertook many times back and forth.
Bicester in the winter felt desolate, days when all you wanted to do was go into town,
Down Sheep Street and look in the record shop, spend hours looking at one creative album sleeve
As the man behind the counter played the same music over and over again.