The football world’s fractured with war
Over Video Assistant VAR,
If in sports as in life
Things scarce are sharp as knife,
What use all this ‘against’ or ‘for’?
Tempers do on games soar,
Should they be football lore?
Hail loss-win less, sportsmanship more.
____________________________
Happenings | 09.07.2026 | football, life, loss, war, win, Limerick
Note: VAR= Video Assistant Referee. The Football World Cup round of 16 between Argentina and Egypt was marred with controversy what with stakes so high causing tempers to rise. This ditty suggests less focus on loss and win and more on sportsmanship.
In swim trunks, the balls were out.
Each one scored a mighty shout.
digressed to a maul,
in a beachside brawl
Winners were in serious doubt.
He accidentally
Punch the referee
He bowed down to her level
And apologized his mistakes
He completely withdraw
The physicality of the moment
Brought his anger to zero
And concerted it to humility
Changed his face, bowed his head
And made himself smaller and shorter than her.
After curtain falls on game
Win or lose, smile and shake hands
Anything less than respect;
Just a crying shame!
An innocent game of release
made dirty by a devious trick
devised by Sean’s older brother, Brandon.
“Guys, we give up!”
he yelled.
The treeline bustled with life
as kids emerged from the woods;
Cubscouts crawled from the underbrush--
“Just kidding!”
he added as he tagged
the bewildered players
against their protests.
It is not a conversation you overhear,
Like the questions rolling underfoot,
"Who goes there?".
You can see the grass has told
How tall to grow
To the chicory, dandelions and clover.
At the edge of the pitch
Where competition is stiff,
They grow bigger, taller and bolder;
Yet in each new match, every plant,
Agrees to a height and no taller.
Till in the next field over, where it's wild and fallowed,
It's to the death, all bets are off, and no foul.
2,21,2020
There is a desperate bent in Men who lose,
A silent howl that seeks the lie to prove,
That She Loved Him, who otherwise did choose,
And shunned him! Seek with teaspoon seas to move,
And you, my friend, my silent fool, my boy
Will suffer for your faith, for ‘twas ill-placed.
Why can you not believe? Why must you toy
With fantasies? The calms with which you’re graced
Must be your roadstead now – your sails repair!
Pound in the caulk! Reseat the mast and cast
Anchor! From storms rest, now the way is fair!
From hopes to ropes and rigging! Sail on past!
She loved well as she could, but did not want
You! Fool! Let past be passed, hopes no more taunt!
Smile... Shake hands...
Nice game...
Taste defeat...
Two tennis pros at Wimbledon,
Competing stroke for stroke,
Played six hours plus and both
Were going, as they say, for broke.
Of course, at last it had to end;
My favorite, sadly, lost.
The winner, though, acknowledged
What the competition cost.
When interviewed, he shook his head
And then apologized
For seeming less enthused than
The reporter had surmised.
He felt for his opponent,
Knowing that he would have been
As devastated if he hadn't
Held on for the win.
Such humbleness was such a sign
Of well-deserved respect
And with roles reversed, the same response
Is what I would expect.
Coach Belichick must have stumbled
New England gets the Jet’s jumbled
Game signals to read
All exposed—was this deed
An interception play fumbled?
In tight contests,
their front acts of deceit,
not conceding
the worthiest defeat,
rivals flash sour smiles
of ignominies;
even when they crush down
hard on their knees.
Spite and rage behind
their civil masks lurk
as, quietly, they
defiantly sulk,
with crass callousness,
cold calculation;
famishing for fame
and adulation!
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