:: Lee Rourke Homepage ::

""A story assembled from everyday objects, unassumingly and quietly, that stuns and horrifies by increments...The Canal may look, at first glance, like a love story, but it harnesses the power of parable." John Wray, author of Lowboy.

Search This Blog

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Not Forgotten . . .



The Flowers of Manchester

One cold and bitter Thursday in Munich, Germany,
Seven great football stalwarts conceded victory,
Seven men will never play again who met destruction there,
The flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester

Matt Busby's boys were flying, returning from Belgrade,
This great United family, all masters of their trade,
The pilot of the aircraft and the skipper Captain Thain,
Three times they tried to take her up and twice turned back again.

The third time down the runaway disaster followed close,
There was ice upon the wings and the aircraft never rose,
It ran upon the marshy ground, it broke, it overturned.
And seven of the team were killed when the battered aircraft burned.

Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor who were capped for England's side.
And Ireland's Billy Whelan and England's Geoff Bent died,
Mark Jones and Eddie Colman, and David Pegg also,
Before the blazing wreckage went ploughing through the snow.

The trainer, coach and secretary, and a member of the crew,
Also eight sporting journalists who with United flew,
and one of them was Big Swifty, we never will forget,
the greatest English 'keeper who ever graced a net.

They said that Duncan Edwards had an injury to his brain,
They said that Jackie Blanchflower would never play again,
Matt Busby he was lying there, the father of the team
Six months or more did pass before he saw another game

Oh, England's finest football team its record truly great,
its proud successes mocked by a cruel turn of fate.
Seven men will never play again, who met destruction there,
the flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester

*The full song can be heard here.

Blog Archive

Labels

2014 (1) 3:AM Magazine (1) 3AM Magazine (1) 4th Estate (1) aircraft (1) Amber (1) Andrew Gallix (2) Ann Quin (2) Art (1) Ben Myers (2) Book covers (1) Book Launch (2) Booker Prize (1) Bookforum (1) Boredom (1) Bram van Velde (1) Brighton (1) Broadway Books (1) Captain Beefheart (1) Carcanet Press (2) Central Station Design (1) Chris Killen (1) Competition (1) Dalkey Archive (4) Dante (1) Death (1) Dumitru Tsepeneag (1) Ellis Sharp (1) Events (1) Everyday Publishing (1) Evie Wyld (2) Gabriel Josipovici (5) Gavin James Bower (1) Georges Bataille (1) Gwendoline Riley (1) Hans Fallada (1) Harper Collins. (1) Hendrik Wittkopf (1) HP Tinker (1) Hubert Selby Jr (1) INS (1) Interviews (1) Jacques Roubaud (1) JD Salinger (1) Jean-Philippe Toussaint (4) JG Ballard (1) Jim Carroll (1) Joe Stretch (1) Jon McGregor (2) Jonathan Lethem (1) Karen Jackson (1) Kevin Cummins (1) Leda and the Swan (1) Light Boxes (1) List (2) Litro (1) LRB (1) Lydie Salvayre (2) Manchester United (1) Manifestos (1) Marion Boyars (1) Martin Heidegger (1) Melville House (11) Modernism (1) Myth (1) New Statesman (1) New Stuff (1) New York Times (1) Nick Cave (1) Noah Cicero (1) Not The Booker Prize (1) Novel (1) Olivier Pauvert (1) On Boredom (1) Pylons (2) Readings (2) Regent's Canal (2) Reviews/Criticism Archives (9) RIP (1) Samuel Beckett (3) Shane Jones (1) Sophie Lewis (1) Steve Finbow (2) Steve Mitchelmore (2) Stewart Home (1) Stuart Evers (1) Swans (1) Tao Lin (3) The Big Green Bookshop (1) The Canal (15) The Divine Comedy (1) The Failure Six (1) The Guardian (2) The Independent (6) The Quarterly Conversation (1) This Space (1) To Hell With Publishing (2) Tom McCarthy (3) Tony O'Neill (2) vapour trails (1) Vulgar Things (1) Yale University Press (1) Yeats (1) Zachary German (1)