The Song of the Glorious Arsh
I’ll sing you the song of the glorious Arsh
As I heard it myself long ago;
His transfer was rumored all over the world,
Yet no one could say where he’d go:
Whether golden-eyed Chelsea would pay well to sign him
Or wine-sipping Barça would pluck off the vine him
Or Midas-like Wenger would prospect and mine him,
And flourish his glorious Arsh.
As a forward for Zenit, in old Petersburg,
He won everything to be had;
He brought home the league, and he brought home the Cup—
UEFA, but still not half bad.
And the old men in pubs who were able to judge him
Agreed there was nothing they’d ever begrudge him
But secretly prayed that their club wouldn’t budge him,
So they’d keep their glorious Arsh.
Yet whispers abounded—he might go to Spain,
Though Marca swore it would be Inter,
And Englishmen noted with serious eyes
That the lad wouldn’t blink at their winter:
For they’d seen him, in Manchester, pass so incisively
Scotsmen forgot they were meant to be nice, and they
Suddenly, strangely, and rather divisively
Stabbed for the glorious Arsh.
At the Euros that year, with his fame at its height,
He stormed down like torrents of rain,
For he silenced the Swedes and dismantled the Dutch
And did no one knows what, against Spain.
But Van Basten’s boys were so thoroughly mastered
That Holland fans rose up as one to get plastered
And grudgingly lifted a mug to the bastard
They knew as the glorious Arsh.
But where would he go? And for whom would he play?
Even he wanted someone to tell him;
The wily old men murmured, “Gazprom’s not poor
And they won’t necessarily sell him.”
But the newspapers thought it would be very harsh
If they’d wasted enough ink to blacken a marsh
On a story they’d kind of pulled out of an Arsh
That was not quite the glorious Arsh—
That was not quite the glorious,
Not the notorious,
Not quite the super-explosive, uproarious,
Unmeretricious and yet meritorious,
Great and victorious Arsh.
Read More: Andrei Arshavin, Transfer Gossip Poetry Grenade
by Brian Phillips · July 11, 2008
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Lord, I shudder to think the amount of time you had to spend getting the meter right on this one.
(Well done, though. As always)
I specially like the bit of rap to end with.
I could have sworn that last verse wasn’t there when this went up originally. Am I crazy?
Yeah, the outro went up later. I looked at what I had and thought it needed a little Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats/Missy Elliott flavor. Obviously, there’s a “what doesn’t?” that could follow that sentence. But basically, that’s how it all went down.
Laurie: You’d be surprised at the extent to which crap soccer poetry pretty much just writes itself.
Dear friends and respective autor,
This song is so remarcable and so well invisage future event happened, that I took responsability to have it in Russian translated (soory if you have no cirrilyc:-)):
Песня о славном Арше
Хочу спеть Вам песню о славном АршЕ.
Ее сам я слышал давно.
О трансфере мир утомившем уже,
Куда? Вам не скажет никто.
Вдруг Челси положит свой глаз золотой,
Иль Барса поманит бухать за собой,
Иль ВЕнгер с ухмылкой отнюдь не простой
Прошепчет: Ау, славный Арш!
Как форвард Зенита для Питера он
Все выиграл, что только есть:
И куПки и чашки. Но наш чемпион
Пока не про…пИл свою честь!
И мудрые челы в газетах его
Судили, как кнут палача своего,
Но после того, как их клубы «того»
Вопили: Виват, славный Арш!
Я помню, клялись, что он в Интер уйдет.
В Испании ждали его.
Британцы плели про «судьбы поворот».
Вдруг – раз – и опять никого.
В Манчестер берут лишь обрезанных, братцы,-
Шотландцы за дело надумали взяться.
Вписали его в свои пьяные святцы:
Ребята, нас вдул славный Арш!
На Евро в Зал славы парнишка попал
Как ветер, как гром, как гроза!
Хоть греков с испанцами где-то проспал,
Но шведов оставил в слезах.
А парни Ван Бастена были круты,
И фаны-голландцы, что с дурью на ты
ПоднЯли по кружке ячменной бурды
За сволочь по имени Арш!
Куда он пойдет? Для кого зафинтит
Кумир из далекой страны?
Ворчат мудрецы: Газпром не решит,
Ведь деньги ему не нужны.
Газеты его обработают разом,
Охают его, не моргнув даже глазом,
В чернила опустят, чтоб звать пидорасом
Того, кто был славным,
Довольно забавным,
Кто только что был еще наш
Взрывной и опасный
Наш гений прекрасный,
Наш розовощекий
И победноокий
Любимец по имени Арш!!!
That’s brilliant, bambula. Thanks!
Dear Brian,
it was me who posted your poem on Zenit’s fan book, I hope you do not mind. Bambula’s translation is really good quality. The poem was a tremendous success on the book, an uproar of applauds, both on the part of those who approve of Arshavin and those who do not.
You really do have a very big following in SPb. Any hopes for new masterpieces?
Kind regards,
Maria
Maria, I don’t mind at all. Having this read by Zenit fans and translated into Russian is a much cooler fate than I ever imagined for it. As for the hope of a sequel, let’s see where he’s playing at the end of today…
Brian,
I keep my fingers crossed in hope that sulking Mitrofanov from our club management and crazy Lahter will not succeed in bringing everything to a failure…
Любопытно написанно, я наверное бы так не смог.
Хорошая статья, как и все предыдущие были. Буду теперь и далее следитьза вашим блогом.
Да уж, автор этого блога на самом деле добрый и отзывчивый человек. Спасибо 🙂