The football finalists in 2006 World Cup Finals were Italy and France. In South Africa, this month they had already suffered ignominious defeats and flown home. The French came home economy class. Such humiliation.
Last Sunday, England lost yet again to Germany in a World Cup match in South Africa by 4-1. The country’s biggest defeat ever in such championships. And thus flew home the following day.
More than 19,000,000 in Britain – about one in three of the population – watched the match on television. We saw, listened and read in the media the hue and cry afterwards from every section of the country. “Man does not live by bread alone.” It seems we, men especially, need the emotional nourishment of great football. Is it any wonder that many a footballer will cast their eyes up to heaven when their score a goal or just miss a goal.
To arouse the fans a few minutes before televising the match, BBC television employed a Shakespearean actor to give a rousing rendition to Shakespeare’s Henry V speech , Act 3, Scene 1 – just before a major battle at Agincourt in 1415 with the French.
Shakespeare wrote on Henry V’s call to battle ends with the liines
“Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
His opening lines are:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Drawing on the first couple of lines of King Henry, I have written two sonnets about the world cup match and suggest the English game serves as something of a metaphor for the state of England, itself. The last famous line, “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” comes from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, Act 5, Scene 4 in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 when King Richard realises he has lost the battle and then his life. I have rewritten the line at the end of the two sonnets.
Cry, England, Sadly and St. Flaws
Once more, onto the pitch, dear fans, once more,
in play, there’s nothing so becomes a man
as skill and team at work, and placed to fore
But when the whistles blow and not a plan
We yell with might and boo as lungs just will.
so little by so few was done for fans,
the many denied the game’s searing thrill
and passion cut from cheering skill that spans,
upon disgrace, men played like boys so few.
One times eleven had crossed the line to mope,
we built them up and fell upon anew,
thus left us bare, endure a time to hope,
a player can’t find a man, a goal nor ball.
we grit our teeth as stars but rise and fall.
As Eurovision, politics and war,
beer brawls, corrupt, desire and to get laid,
O England. What more fruits do lie in store?
our men did shrink and gave succour to prey.
They failed our hopes, all these so lowly men,
defences, midfielders , attack laid siege,
and shuffled on the field like pecking hens,
and men of thickened blood and lost prestige.
We lent our eyes to score, the pain of hope,
not worth a place, and we were then outweighed;
no measured pass; our team had failed to cope,
and gone beyond the pale and disarrayed
did die, and lost desire to find esteem,
and grabbed the money, fame and lost the dream.
A Team! A Team! Our Kingdom for a Team!