Christmas Day, 1914

Football, now there's a sport -
lace your boots, son, play the game.
Not just kick and rush, son,
like they play in the park -
it is Art, son, its a bloody art,
kicking balls, scoring goals, tackling,
sharing jokes, cigs and chocolate.

Puts me in mind of the time -
and there's few left will remember, my boy,
when war stopped for a game,
us against the Hun in No-Man's Land.
Grand, lad, it were grand,
just kicking lumps out of each other,
goals made out of uniforms -
much better than shooting lumps
out of each other.

This Hun came up to me
with a bar of chocolate and a smile.
I brewed up, gave him a cup
we chatted for a while,
mainly sign language, truth to tell,
but comradely, like.
A cold day, as I remember
but better than in the trenches,
that stretch of lawn between the wires.

They sent me back to my old trade after.
Sniper - I was good, son, let me tell you.
I could draw a bead, take a breath and
- ping - Art, it was, my son.
I shot that Hun through the skull.
Least I could do in the circumstance -
to kill the poor bugger as quick as I could.

I remember the photo he showed me
some young fraulein smiling, neat hair,
and the picture could have been taken anywhere.
I wonder sometimes what became of her,
and does she still think of him, even now.

But just you ponder on this, my son
of what might have been done
if we'd all laid down our guns
and refused to take them up again.
We did, you know, for a bit,
but the officers threatened to shoot us -
selected the firing squads.
I heard a rumour that they'd shot some poor bastards
just for saying 'No!'

But just you imagine -
how the world would have been changed,
if we'd never picked up our rifles again.
If we'd played football every day
on that pockmarked lawn
called 'No-Man's Land.
I reckon we really put the wind up them,
that day, Christmas Day 1914.

Now, there's a dream worth the dreaming, son.