Junior Boys Capture Island Championships

6 November 2015Mr. Paul Collis

Mr. Collis, Coach of the Junior Boys Soccer team – now Island Champions – and Head of the English Department, performed this poem for the school at Thursday’s assembly. With a tip of the hat to Robert Service.

There are strange things done
Under the soccer sun
Boy the boys who toil for goals.

I’ve endured such times
On the sidelines
As would make your blood run cold.

I’ve seen so much
Coaching from touch
But the strangest I ever did see?

The Junior Boys 1st XI
Went up to AAA Heaven
And brought back the golden trophy.

It starts with a goal
And keeping ours whole
Was Will’s back-up: a real cloth-eared knave.

He punches crosses with disdain
His technique is, well, insane
And my keeper, like Jesus, he saves.

All hail to my backline!
No chains adamantine
Could be forged from tougher steel.

They just get in your way
There’s just no way: José!
Nate’s pecs are a really big deal.

And you know who can’t score?
Oliver Bonkes for sure
That’s why he’s my defender for life.

And who owns this heart of mine?
It’s my dear sweet Valentin
The big German who looks just like my wife.

Defeat’s never near
With Christiaan de Beer
And Nich Mitchell anchoring the mid.

Mon capitan? Mon capitan?
His name is Griffin
No one’s tougher than this sixty pound kid.

Who’s the salsa in my taco?
It’s Raul and Pablo
They’re our Latin attack, teams are fearing,

But if the fiesta won’t start
Who runs over team’s hearts?
Why it’s Mueller: German engineering.

Alex C, and Carter Krasny
Luka, Carlos, & Nick P.
Rafa Grey: the pride of the Philippines.

Maybe they didn’t start
But they all played their part
And they are all envied by a soccer academy.

Let’ see, is that all?
18 kids – that’s too small
There must be some kids whom I’m missing.

There must be two kids
No matter what you did
Would elbow by and send goaltenders fishing.

Let’s talk Brazilian Bruno Chan
He’s got more goals than Bud’s 10 year plan
He scored more again Royal Bay than I’ve scored in my life.

And you just can’t tackle air
Casper the unfriendly ghost’s comin’, so beware
The Flyin’ Duchman, well he just don’t play nice.

This is by now, no doubt,
The longest poem, or near about,
That you’ve ever endured in the Bunch.

And now you’re wonderin’
How long I’ll keep going’
And if I can hold out ’til lunch.

But I’m almost done
And if this seemed long
This school’s waited its history to say again

No man is an island
But if you want, I can find them
Those men they call Island Champions. Please click here to see the declamation. https://www.facebook.com/brentwoodcollegeschool/videos/10153792380635229/

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