"All Aboard The Skylark"

Back in the old days
For I am at the phase
Of my life that I can say that
Without so much of an eyelid bat
When we last came top of a table
So long ago it sounds like a fable
We didn't struggle to fill a bus
But often two without a fuss!
One was quiet for old farts
The other noisy with young upstarts
Every game wherever we went
Across London, northern Home Counties;
Surrey, Sussex or Kent
Under the wing of Pat and Ron
St. Albans, Bromley, Harwich & Parkeston.
The prices were pennies rather than pounds
I still recall Pat the Rattle's sounds
No modern satnav to do the biz
Same old cry: "Does anyone know where the ground is?"
I was only a boy back in seventy eight
So I paid the kiddies rate.
That trip to Finchley door to door
Too many people so paid half of a half
To sit on the floor
People on the pitch as soon as Ossie score'
But it wasn't the post-war record
As 'suddenly' Jover had got more!
Usually the coach went back on the dot
But that day was as good as it got
All on the pitch sprayed with bubbly
Given a glass by Alan Smith luvvly jubbly!
Actually the first drink of my life
Starting decades of alcoholic strife...
Back in those days the coaches were packed
You had to find a seat with a bit of tact
The back of the coach was a no-go place
Where you had to be a Hamlet face
The real reason was the pre-internet dawn
They always shared tame top shelf porn!
In them days they were also shamefully racist
Crudity of the lowest base-ist.
Truth is I knew they were mugs
Too cowardly even to be proper thugs.
That's why now I talk to younger fans
Treating them as adult as we all can.
Certainly not because I want to prey
Which DID happen back in the day.
"Don't sit next to Bob the Coat"
Always hushed with a nod & a wink
It was enough to make me think.
But when you're just eleven and want pocket money
It doesn't matter if he treats you funny.
In the Seventies it wasn't just Savile, Rolf Harris
And the showbiz crowd
If you liked younger kids it was effectively allowed.
To be fair he was a creep but sound
I did what he wanted for a couple of pound.
Thankfully those days will never return
It is so wrong as society has learn'
My only regret being silent at the time
Letting him get away with his crime
Is any other boys he may have hurt
Should have beaten him into the dirt.
Just because what he did to me I thought was nice
Doesn't mean others never paid the price.

Dulwich Poet 21st April 2013

( This poem was supposed to start out as one about coach trips to away games, inspired by our trip to Herne Bay, yesterday. A few people jokingly say I should write one, but it didn't go in the direction I thought it would, with me writing about an old fan, now dead a fw years, who used to molest me, so this is one that I won't be putting in my real name on Facebook)