"F.B.B."

I wonder where you were
When I was just a child
If you had been in existence
Would I have been so wild?
I was never good at football
But you would not have taken the mick
It's all about respect and self-worth
That's your mentoring trick.
I look at the work you do
Turning kids around
Without your helping hand
How many would have drowned?
It's taken me nigh on half a century
To feel I have some worth
Always felt angry & isolated
Almost right from birth.
Lucky never to have gone to prison
Fortunate to avoid inside
I hurt so many people
And within I've almost died.
Through my Club I can help F.B.B.
And play a tiny part
Atoning for my wasted life
For me that's a start.
Seeing all these youngsters growing
From young herberts into men
I'm not proud of all my past
I know what I was like back then.
Been nasty, beaten others
Some I've even strangled
As I grew a little older
Through alcohol I got mangled.
In these kids I see myself
As in what I might have been 
If there had been an F.B.B.
Back when I was a teen.
That's why I support them
At 'Cafe Football' all posh
Ordinary for the 'Corporates'
But for me it was fancy nosh.
That's down to my middle aged insecurity
Left over scars from my youth
Which is why I feel so uneasy
When I'm praised with the truth.
I envy these Football Beyond Borders teens
Changing their ways before it's too late
If a little of that can rub off on me
Maybe I'll believe and wipe my slate.

Dulwich Poet 26th November 2015

(I've just attended a fundraising dinner, in aid of the charity 'Football Beyond Borders', which does a lot of work with schoolchildren across South London, and I wrote this on the way home.)