I was so pleased to receive the  full poem from John Miles (see 6th comment on this link) – many thanks John.

This discussion has been ongoing since I first posted a question about  these magical sportsmanship words back in December 2008.  However I still wonder why the attached beautiful graphic (which used to hang in my parents’ bedroom  in Dublin in the 1950s) refers to Newbolt? Does anyone know?

You can download this as a poster by clicking on it or print it out and post it onto a notice board, or a dressing room.

They play all their games away from home. They wear old beaten up gear, lose consistently and never ever get cheered on.

Suddenly, Gainsville Tornadoes had hundreds of fans and cheerleaders and the fans cheered them on by name. The fans even knew their names. The Gainsville guys were stunned, amazed and absolutely delighted. “We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games,” says Gerald, a lineman  whose doing three years. “You can see it in their eyes. They’re lookin’ at us like we’re criminals. But these people, they were yellin’ for us! By our names!”  Another Gainsville player, Isaah, said I never would’ve known there was so many people in the world that cared about us.”

And though they lost 33-14, the Gainesville guys were so happy that after the game they showered their head coach Mark Williams with their squirt bottles as if they were celebrating winning a championship.  As the Gainsville boys were marched back onto their bus the Gainsville coach saw Hogan, grabbed  him and told him ‘you’ll never ever know what your people did for these kids tonight.’