ONLY FOOTBALL?

(For Brighton, Wrexham, Cambridge..who¹s next?)

His forebears were the butchers on the field at Peterloo

They led the charge and cut the people down

They ruled the mill, starved weavers out, beat Chartists black and blue

Made millions in some hellish sweatshop town

I¹m sure he cursed his countrymen in ¹84 and O5

His queen called them 'the enemy within¹

He¹s overseer and usurer, the drone within the hive

Whose wallet is his god, his kith and kin

and don¹t tell me it's only football

 

His system defines Ownership­ a mess of paper shares

A slick deal, a commodity acquired

He pulls the strings and works the law so he controls the 'wares'

Then laughs at all the anguish he's inspired

Now we are many thousands, and he is only one

But law and state hold him in their embrace

What kind of law, what kind of state condones what he has done?

A state where human values have no place

CHORUS

So don¹t tell me it¹s only football

And above all, friends, don't tell me please

That it¹s nothing to do with years of sleaze

The shattered lives and the corporate trough

Don¹t tell me it's just a sad one-off

That it¹s nothing to do with politics

That politics and sport don¹t mix

Don¹t tell me it's just bad luck

Because it isn't only football

 

Our grounds rose up near stations in old Victorian times

Most urban centres then were barely towns

Built for our teams, then left in trust to us across the years

By people who loved football, not just pounds

The vulture sees the soaring price of inner city land

An ailing club which he can desecrate

To us it's pride and history, the story of our lives

To him it¹s just some prime site real estate

CHORUS

Our culture has been colonised, our heritage is sold

And moneymen control our national game

It's devil take the hindmost, all hail the Premier League

And if you can¹t compete, well, that's a shame

There¹s a superstore development and it¹s coming to your ground

A pinstriped butcher's waiting with his knife

That butcher struck at Brighton and he must not strike again

Let's kick him out ­ of football, and of life!

CHORUS

 

Attila the Stockbroker