It’s busy on a market day,
Especially Carlton Lanes,
Which passes for a shopping mall
And refuge when it rains.
And in the arcade cafe
Talk is hotting up
I keep my gaze cast downwards
And stare into my cup.
“I’d put ’em up against a wall
And shoot the bloody lot”
“They need to get some fire in ’em
To stop the bloody rot”.
These snippets of the banter
Intrigued me as they ought
But in the end I cottoned on –
This was not war but sport.
Was it Yorkshire cricket?
A run-out or dropped catch?
Or last night’s snooker on the box
Or Leeds’s football match?
Though Leeds had won on Sunday
The crack showed no fatigue.
But this is downtown Castleford
So talk’s of rugby league.
