Fans

By Ellen Causey

The full time whistle cuts through the action and 200 pairs of shoulders sag, 

it is the first football match I have ever been to, I am seven years old, and I have never seen so many men care so very much, 

brows furrowed, cracking red paint, faces of clay or something equally worn and worried.

The unreliable narrator of my childhood cannot tell me 

if I knew what was about to happen, 

that they would soon be building a new stadium, 

or that fans would begin to tear apart what the whistle had pronounced the old stadium, regardless

I saw how years of dedication always deserved a souvenir. 

You cannot support something for so long, with so much of yourself, without earning a reward, this was their reward, 

callous hands ripped plastic chairs from their place, tore down netting, dug up turf with dirty fingernails. 

I had never seen love look like this, 

yet
 
200 football kits gutted their stadium 

taking 200 ‘only one thing’s,’ laying claim to the sacred shell. 

My dad joined in, his friend already on his knees,

hands like weathered excavators, returning to the earth,

‘I don’t know where I’ll put it’ he says 

‘but I can’t leave empty handed’ 

I do not remember what he took 

nor where he put it 

they do not measure the space they intend to take up

so I watched 

what the hands of entitled men could do 

when they cared enough 

To rip 
& tear 
& gut 
& claim 
& dig 
& dig 
& dig.

Ellen is a video producer and scriptwriter based in Bristol, UK. She is a predominantly spoken word poet and has won competitions in England and New Zealand, performing at festivals, national slams and the occasional cramped coffee shop. She is currently working on her debut anthology.