VETCH FIELD ELEGY

Swansea City vs. Wrexham, FAW Premier Cup Final, 11th May 2005

On your deathbed
we stripped you –
ripped out red plastic seats
and advertisement boards
like thieves
stealing gold from fresh bodies.

The Vetch clock,
not yet stopped
but definitely slowing,
tick-tocked our
final minutes away
as Roger Evans,
muffled by soot, 
whispered down chimneys
into Sandfields living-rooms
for the last time.

Then, with makeshift spades
we dug shallow graves
across your boot-worn pitch –
taking turf home
to place on the mantle,
to plant in back-gardens,

to say we were there
when that man in black
sounded the final final-whistle
at our beloved tin shed.
And as the smell of
warm piss and fried onions
drifted above the floodlights,
getting lost on its way to the bay,
we poured out into the streets
like black and white tears.

First published in Blood and Thunder, Rough and Tumble (Sandfields Community Association, 2012)
Video recorded for The Crunch Issue #0 (October, 2015)