Saturday afternoon 35,000 sing Marching on Together, we’re going to see you win
They sit, they stand, exercising their vocal chords,
in solidarity against the enemy.
We've been through it all together, we’ve had our ups and downs
We're gonna stay with you forever, at least until the world stops going round
On the pitch, players from Germany, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, USA, Japan, Brazil, Slovenia, Bulgaria,
St. Lucia, Wales, Sweden and, oh yes, a couple of English men.
An international squad, cheered on by a mainly white male English crowd.
On all 4 sides of the ground people sing together with a religious fervour,
urging those they love, their heroes, on to victory.
The thousands leave the ground happy.
The following Thursday, some that were there go to vote.
The fellow in the Kop, who sang his swearing heart out,
an accountant, lives an affluent life in Adel,
mutters about immigrants as he puts his cross next to ‘Reform’.
The man in the Norman Hunter Stand, hesitates,
a good union man but feels he must, now, vote Green.
The vicar, who takes his 10-year-old daughter to the Jack Charlton family stand,
worries about the swear word she heard, repeatedly, on Saturday afternoon
and then shouted it out loud during his sermon the next day.
He wishes his sparse congregation were as enthusiastic as the Elland Road crowd.
He plumps for neither left nor right putting his cross next to the Liberal Democrat.
A woman, who now sits, where she once stood in the John Charles stand, having supported the team
for 60 years, through the ups and downs of the song, cannot desert the party she has always voted
for, Starmer notwithstanding.
Marching on together? … I think not…
Malcolm Henshall