OH TO BE 14 AGAIN

OH TO BE 14 AGAIN
 

I look behind me at the road which is littered with the mistakes I've made.

They stretch out like mile markers, they're memories temporarily mislaid.

14 in '65 running up the road to get away from my past

reaching out for answers to the many questions that have yet to be asked.

Then suddenly they were there on a rainy, blustery night in April.

Our story had sort of fizzled out but the spring would produce its sequel.

Dolores, the name was onomatopoeic, we'd been out a few times

and since then she'd been the subject of my many innocent, teenage rhymes.

But she came from the Flat Tops, looked down on as the wrong area of town

so parental pressure was exerted in an effort to wear me down.

The poems I wrote were my act of rebellion and they made me see

that, if not for ever, then for now, Dolores and I were meant to be.

So I asked her to come out on 26th April 1965.

Hand in hand down the Warwick Road, it was like the air itself was alive.

The kindly wind played its part, blowing us over the bridge towards the ground.

Hemmed in by thousands of others it wasn't long before we heard the sound

of singing, chanting, a crowd that knew something special would happen tonight

at a ground being rebuilt, one which twenty years ago was a bombsite.

Dolores was attached to me like a limpet mine, our closeness felt good.

The dampness sparked an electricity between us, we both understood

that by tomorrow we would be different people, childhood left behind

and it was to be by our own actions and words that we would be defined. 

United won the game 3-1 and the League, a crowd in 7th heaven.

The first title to be won since the Busby Babes in 1957.

We joined others on the pitch in a United act of celebration.

It was a spring that brought something new to life, like an act of creation.

On the last bus home she fell asleep on my eager shoulder - oh what bliss.

Words were fighting hard to be put on a page as I imagined a kiss

that would become reality as I walked her home round about midnight.

The rain had gone, the moon and stars had come out, they were ready to ignite

what would happen between us on that long ago, memorable April night.

'Twas a spring like no other, one when she was my princess, I was her Knight.