“It hurts, mummy, it hurts”; runs the plaintive cry
“Make it go away, mummy, send it way up high.”
“Get fucking real”, answers mummy, “and get a fucking grip”
It’s only a game of football, you snivelling little shit.

But its not an “only” anything, it happens again and again,
It is life itself!, distilled down to a microcosm of pain.
I hate to lose a football match, whoever it may be to
But to lose THAT particular one is oh so hard to do.

It hurts on many levels, the agony, the shame, the frustration
The shockwave of pain rocks more than just the nation
It is felt the whole world over, from Texas to Kharkov
And even up to worlds and planets we’ve never even heard of.

Because when Arsenal win a football match it is always a moral crime
But when they win at White Hart Lane society has declined.
It is a sin against the good and noble, a statement of intent
That the devil has moved to north London, and he’s not going to pay his rent.

This was the proverbial ‘game of two halves’ indeed,
As pretty much most of them are, you have to concede
But in this match both those halves were horrible, dire and sad
So for consistency, if nothing else, it wasn’t really too bad.

They scored a couple of goals, with a serious error of goal-keeping
Who fucked up so bad he had all of us distressed and weeping.
The other goal was a cock-up too, this time managerial
Thinking that the Arse’s extra mid-fielder would be simply immaterial.

The fact is that we were beaten by a better team all round
With a manager, though Spanish, has his feet firmly on the ground.
And that’s the hardest thing of all to accept in any meaningful way
That we lost it fair and square at the end of the (fucking) day.

And as Joey sat there, playing with his toys, oblivious to the game
I had to think, with tears in my eyes, how most shit stays the same.
‘You are our future!’, I thought, for my Spurs fan of tomorrow
He will share our rich legacy… of misery, anger and sorrow.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Xxxx