Football: a short play

“Shall we get some sweets for the match?” I ask.

“No,” says my boyfriend.

“Why not? You know, like at the theatre.”

“This isn’t the theatre.”

“What about the artistry? The drama? The tears? Look, they have programmes and everything. Do they say what else the footballers have been in before this? Like, The Bill?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame.”

Pause

“I think I’ll buy some Haribo. And some Minstrels. Then we’ve got a choice of chewy and chocolatey to keep us going. Perhaps I’ll have a Haribo if one team scores, and a Minstrel if the other one does. That might make it fun. Not that it won’t be fun anyway. It will be SO much fun. Yay, football.”

Pause

“Look, there’s a young hipster couple. They have dip-dyed hair and drawstring rucksacks. Let’s stand near them.”

Pause

“Do people still use clackers?”

“What?”

“Clackers. Dangerous balls on a string. From the 70s. Clackers.”

“You mean rattles.”

“I mean clackers.”

“No, rattles. People have rattles at football matches.”

“Oh. Do people still use rattles then?”

“No.”

“What about orange slices on a tray?”

“No. Have you based all of your football preconceptions on Gregory’s Girl?”

“Possibly.”

Pause

“Wait, was that a goal? A goal! Oh, in the wrong goal. Oh dear. Fiddlesticks. That was very quick.”

“Two minutes.”

“Whoops-a-daisy.”

“Quite.”

“When does the singing start? Shall we sing now, or do we have to wait until someone falls over? We could do ‘you’re not singing anymore’, except they haven’t started yet so it would feel incoherent. ”

Pause

“Why wasn’t I allowed to wear my leopard print coat?”

“I was worried people might sing at you.”

“That could have been brilliant. We could have had a musical showdown, like a snazzy Mancunian version of West Side Story. Perhaps we could be the leopards and they could be the… zebras. We could harmonise th- ooh was that another goal?”

“Yes.”

“In our goal?”

“Yes.”

Pause

“Minstrel?”