Black Boots and Football Pinks by Daniel Gray

Author:Daniel Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

25

Home away, home away

There was poetry in the rhythm. Home away, home away, home away. It soothed like the clickety-clack clickety-clack of an old train carriage, or dove coos on a promising morning. Repeated aloud, it had the hypnotic clout of some meditative chant.

The tone in which each of the two words were pronounced could be telling: ‘home’ a warm, rising and prolonged salute; ‘away’ sharp, serious and portentous. On a fixture list, home ties were lifted from the page in bold, away ties stood back with their shoulders hunched in regular type. This symmetry, a duet performed 20 times over, made for a pleasing striped pattern in print, a never-ending sandwich. Home was shouted, away whispered, the large and small bars of a xylophone.

To know that every second Saturday you would be in the ground you knew and loved best was enormously comforting. It blended with a football supporter’s need for routine and ritual, complementing pre-match routes to the ground, lucky garments and always standing in the same place. Home away, home away, home away… a sweet and orderly hymn.

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