If all these great writers
Were still alive in these days
I believe they'd all be soccer fans
And write about it in magazines and plays.
 
Shakespeare predicts a winter of discontent
After watching Coventry City play
Performances that are much ado about nothing
And a comedy of errors home and away.
 
Dickens writes about the fans great expectations
For the team who wear the Sky blue
But alas, he forsees a season of hard times
If they don't start picking up a point or two.
 
Victor Hugo says the fans are feeling Les Miserables
With shoulders drooped like the Hunchback of Notre Dame
While Orwell reckons they'd rather watch Big Brother
Or stay in and read his book Animal Farm.
 
But Shakespeare finally tells us fans not to fret
he's not really writing off our football team
In fact he predicts a top six finish
Because he saw it in a Midsummer Nights dream!

 

 

 

 

I've blended together two great passions of mine, football and literature,
and as you can see, they do seem to go together.

As a football fan, I like to not only watch the sport, but to read about it
as well, and it got me wondering about great writers from times passed,
and how they would write today ?

If they were brought back to life, and they were journalists, I reckon they
would soon master computers, sorry mister dickens, but we don't use quill
and ink anymore !

Anyway after mastering the new technology, they get down to what they do best, and they soon become well known for their flair of writing great articles and headlines,

such as from Dickens : LIVERPOOL VERSUS LEEDS,A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

and from Shakespeare : ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL FOR LIVERPOOL.

AND Lewis Carroll wrote :

PALACE IN WONDERLAND.
 
So as you can see, they do embrace modern life, but have to slip in lines from their work now and then, old habits die hard.

For example, Thomas Hardy, when writing about hooligans on the terraces," I'm glad I was far from this madding crowd, and Shakespeare said about Shrewsbury getting beat,

" The taming of the Shrews ! "
 
Tolkien was told off for calling a player a Hobbit, he couldn't understand why, he said that the  player was small, and played in the hole, so he thought it was an apt description.
 
Some writers liked to sneak in words from their books, like Bram Stoker, saying the new defender added "bite " to the team, and Jules Verne wrote, this team is so poor, they should be in the division, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea !
 
Shakespeare was always doing it, like these two gems : " Coventry blew Aston Villa away today, like a Tempest they tore threw them, and Coventry certainly had the measure for measure of Arsenal in tonights match.
 
But alas, poor old William got the sack from the Stratford gazette, for allegedly using an obscene word when describing a players performance, he protested his innocence, saying  it was meant to be a compliment, but the editor said he had to go, because the player had said that he had never been called a, Coriolanus before !
 
So you could say that Shakespeare was now BARRED ! (SORRY )

 

 

Kevin Halls