Goodbye to All That

by Robert Graves

The village nonagenarian complained that football was not so manly now as in his boyhood. He pointed across the fields to a couple of aged willow trees: ‘Them used to be our home goals,’ he said. ‘T’other pair stood half a mile upstream. Constable stopped our play in the end. Three men were killed in the last game – one kicked to death; t’other two drowned each other in a scrimmage. Her was a grand game.’