IF you can keep your job when better people
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can live with yourself when all fans doubt you
And don't believe their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or not being lied about, always believe in lies,
Or being hated, always give way to hating,
And when it don't look good, try to talk too wise:
If you can dream and yet make Roland your master;
If you can't think and not make promotion your aim;
If you can lunch with Parkes and Murray
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can't bear to hear the lies you've spoken
Repeated on air and made a trap for fools,
Or watch the ambitions you gave your life to, broken,
By CARD and still think them naught but tools:
If you can make one all sound like winning
But really could not give a toss,
And lose and believe it's a new beginning
But really do not care about the loss;
If you can make your heart and nerve and sinew
See 20K long after they have gone,
And stay on when there is nothing to you,
Except the ego which says to you: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with Keohane and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Douche - to avoid the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If no men count with you but, Roland far too much;
If you can fuel the unforgiving protests
With not knowing how a football club is run,
Yours is an empty ground with no one in it,
And - which is more - you'll be Katrien Miere my son!
8
