The Beautiful Game

The F.A. said women were different,
that there was no demand.
But now the myth has been broken.
Turnstiles click open.

Once historically forgotten
they looked for liberation.
From eras of missed chances
they have broken free.

An assigned gender role,
not confused with reality,
has been banished to
the archive of time.

The sound of a ball
is hitting the wall,
no longer off-side
it echoes through history.

Time had killed aspirations.
Now it gives birth
To a new generation.

Voices of a new age
have been heard.
Players run towards happiness.
Win lose or draw, home or away,
they have entered no-man’s land.
It is there that they play.

Alan Ford has been writing poetry for about a year and is interested in unusual subjects rather than traditional ones. His work has been published by literary magazines Down in the Dirt, Ariel Chart. Conclave, Blue Lake Review, Academy of the Heart and Mind and Scarlet Leaf Review, and Dissident Voice. His fiction books are The Himmler Contract, The Hitler Affair, The War Criminal, The St George Murders and the satires Nelson Mandela's Ghost and Elvis Presley's Ghost and Princess Diana's Ghost. Read other articles by Alan.