The echo chamber

The rooms now empty, echoing again,
his players long gone from their latest loss,
The coach surveys the scene, once more his men
have led, but coughed it up. Still, he’s the boss.

He’ll have to take the blame although he knows
his midfield’s soft, his forwards will not run
Down back his boys won’t work; they play too loose.
He barely gets a shot from his young gun.

With arms heaped full of socks and boots old Stu,
property steward thirty years, comes near
‘I reckon you’ve done all that you can do.
Perhaps it’s time we focused on next year.’
‘No,’ says the coach. ‘The journos want my head.
Well they can wait. I’m telling you instead…’

Comments

  1. Richard Naco says

    I managed to get sacked twice in 6 years as a first grade basketball coach in Canberra – not just half way in the season after breaking a premiership drought (when, in both cases, the team was better placed than at the corresponding time in the premiership season), not just by the same club, not just from the same team, but at the instigation of the very same committee member.

    It’s much easier to wear if you are forced out on top. (I’ve always loved the Pythons.)

  2. Loved it Richard. I always like it when you don’t see the punchline coming. Clever and poignant.

  3. Thanks Peter, I guess the passing of coaches is such a common story that it’s easy to forget that each time this happens it plays out in small private moments as well as in the glare of the press.

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