Whatever Next?

When War broke out, the British public cried


“We’ll be in Berlin by Christmas.” But


By Christmas hundreds of thousands had died,

As Mons, The Marne, Ypres and Messines cut


Down the youth of Europe, while Flanders’ flood


Drowned dying, dead and alive. Summer’s dream


Was swamped by winter’s mud, rats, death and blood


In No Man’s Land; a hell hole night mare scene


Of barbed wire, flares, shells, screams and shrapnel

(A choreographed commonality


That saw each side’s men attack, flail and fall


In ceaseless dance of death’s banality)
,

Until, at Christmas, nineteen fourteen, when


Hamburg, Berlin, London and Manchester


Said “No!” to the killing fields’ mad mayhem


Ordered by Kaiser, Flag, Map and Officer,

And met instead in friendship, walking tall


And slow, comrades in war’s adversities,

They embraced in No Man’s Land and Football


Harmonised nations’ animosities;

And what if the playing of the Peoples’ Game


Had continued beyond that Christmas time?

What on earth would have happened next?

Well, I suggest to you that none of the following


Would have occurred –


The Battle of the Somme; Verdun;

The Bolshevik Revolution; The Russian Civil War; Stalin; Hitler; Fascism; World War Two; nuclear weapons; the Cold War; Remembrance Day;

Think about it.

And play the Peoples’ Game this Christmas.