Take off your fine new football boots and come over here my son
and I'll tell you of a game we played when your daddy was still young.
Its name was Gaelic football played by two teams of fifteen.
a running, fielding, passing game: athletic, hard but clean.
Men from every county - proud of their native place
played their hearts out yearly in the championship race.
They learned the skills as young lads in colleges and schools;
they learned how to express themselves and they played it by the rules.
And what a spectacle it was each autumn in Croke Park
the roars of encouragement when from the tunnel dark
the men from Cork or Galway, Kerry or the Liffey side
burst out to play for Sam Maguire, their club and village pride.
But then there came this awful change some years ago a stóir,
thirteen men behind the ball, two left up front to score,
a pulling, dragging, violent brawl, persistent fouls and dives,
played by men who couldn't field a ball to save their lives.
Blanket defence football is the name by which it’s known
and it leaves a trail of busted ribs, black eyes and shattered bone
but yet when they themselves are tackled - shouldered hard but fair
they whinge and whine and beg the ref to book their marking player.
So every match is littered now by red and yellow cards
and up-field progress registers in inches not in yards,
with eighty frees in every match, ripped shirts and torn togs,
there’ll be no one watching very soon but the ref and two small dogs.
- John McCarthy