PPPC: Basham Went to Hospital and Ndiaye Went Home

Andrew Senior returns with a new instalment of the once consequentially overlooked Pukka Pie Poetry Corner.

Mar 01, 2024

Andrew Senior

It has been some time since the Puk-Pi-Po-Co was featured in The Pinch, and for that, I am truly sorry. I did submit a poem last summer, specifically written to be published in the run-up to the start of the season, but the editor overlooked it in their (his) inbox and then the moment passed.

A shame really because that poem contained such depth of yearning for the recommencement of Premier League football at Bramall Lane, such overwhelming optimism about what might happen in 2023-24, such urgent exertion to get behind the team, that I am convinced it would have changed everything.

All you subscribers would have read it, been blown away, shared it far and wide, recounted it in the stands and afterwards in the pub, and, like a pebble dropped in a pond, its potent lyricism would have rippled through the entire SUFC community, lifted us all — management, squad, supporters alike — and propelled us to success against all the odds. But as I say, the editor overlooked it. So instead, you’ll have to make do with what follows.

Basham Went to Hospital and Ndiaye Went Home

It's become a bind

Following the misfortunes of this Championship side.

The pundits have been brutal.

Chris Sutton said we’re time wasters playing pub football.

Sutton you nob,

Have you seen how many players we've lost?

But it's all gone to ground:

The anticipatory stride through town,

The expectant surge of red and white,

The belief in joyful floodlit nights.

Loosing home and away,

Eleventh time lucky (as they say).

A woeful season,

But for a comprehensive victory over Gillingham.

Can we make an application,

Concede now and take voluntary relegation?

Spend the final six months

Pretending we aren’t a Basement Club.

Book in for some therapy,

Address the big questions, like why Berge went to Burnley.

Confront those cruel hopes:

City, Spurs, Villa, the times we went close.

No reason to be proud

Don't mention 24 September, don't mention Eddie Howe.

Don’t mention balls in the net,

Breaking a record we'd rather stayed intact.

Will Grbic save the day?

Not conceding five in his first game.

There’s little more to be said,

Apart from “please just let this end”.

The highlight of my Saturday?

“Gladiators Ready”.

So, that’s where I’m at. And if you are too, remember, “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Everyone’s got it in them. All are welcome in the Pukka Pie Poetry Corner. Apart from Chris Sutton. Don’t bottle it up. Start poeticising today.

And to offer something more upbeat, here’s a throwback to recent success, a sensation that may just yet come back to us, courtesy of Messrs Wilder and Knill. It remains to be seen, but, for now, enjoy recalling to mind this spectacular moment: