“Good friends, had we tramp’d upon this hallowed ground
for aught than our present action otherhow,
we might have brought the picnic baskets with us
instead of shields, and dogs instead of horses;
instead of swords, corkscrews, instead of mail,
fashionable, casual leisure garments;
instead of these our hardy hobnail boots,
patent leather loafers with neat tassles;
instead of marching here with warlike clamour,
we may have caper’d forth like merry peasants,
full of midsummer boisterous gaiety,
dancing the Morris with coloured ribbons
on this newly-mown-grass mild May morning.

“But, O, this morning is no holiday.
Our anxious ladies wait for us at home
for pending joyous news of our success
which they shall, peradventure, have ere long.

“There cannot be a lot of you here present
who do not know the cause of this offensive,
but since the enemy thus far stands off
aloof o’er yonder snow-clad mountain top
with whetted steel to meet our expedition,
giving time for idle chatter, I’ll inform
those of you whose ears are lagg’d with cloth
the reasons why you have been summon’d all
to march with me henceforward into battle.

“Good and worthy friends, I’ll not mince words.
The enemy whom this hot day we purpose
soundly to thrash are just a load of buggers.

“For many an annum has our city heard
the insults which their press and television
have cast abroad to mock the very pavements
on which you daily tread, making our home
of scornful rank derision.

“There have been many several loathsome comments
which they have dared to slander us withal.
They have called us full mighty arrogant.
They have dar’d to call us scurvy wierdos.
They have call’d us idiots, two-faced pillocks,
sods, vermin, sheep, tadpoles, armadilloes
and subterranean amphibious
slime-bags. They have call’d us buffoons, blackguards,
muddle-headed dirtyboys, aggravating
nitwits, slothful rattish methane-merchants
and semi-conscious antelope eaters!

“They have call’d us the bedwet people
who nightly soil our bulbous woollen breeches!
They have call’d us the people with no thumbs!
But worst of all, my staunch, approvéd friends,
they have smirch’d the very valour of yourselves,
the plucky, gallant soldiers of our land,
whom many wiser nations account fearful,
but who the dastard, naughty foe doth call,
‘A troupe of ir’n-clad poofs who couldn’t fight
their exit forth from out a paper bag’!

“And so, with bloody minds and murd’rous thoughts
have we arrivéd here to prove ourselves
against this tribe of sleazy foreign oafs!
If there be any here who doubt this cause,
we hereby give free passage of retire
and homeward art thou free apace to go
where safety and forgetfulness resides.

“But if, perchance, as rather I suspect,
each one of you is apt to wage assault,
then we shall show this band of half-bred loons
how foolish ’tis to take from us the piss!
Arrogant, we’re called? Ha! They can bloody talk!
Wierdos, we’re called? We’ll show how weird we are,
shouting “Chaffinch!” as we slice their legs!

“Idiots, we’re called? Then idiots we’ll be,
poking our tongues out as we poke their hearts!
Poofters, we’re called? We’ll show how we can mince
for meet it is to mince them into pies!

“Full well you all do know that not all here
are trainéd soldiers skill’d to wield the sword.
It has not pass’d our haughty observation
that most of you are honest, lowly traders,
inclinéd more to reap our bustling streets
in retail enterprise with customers,
and therefore come equipp’d with butcher’s knife,
shepherd’s staff, the usurer’s tally-stick,
the grocer’s wheelbarrow, the horseman’s brush,
the website builder’s cordless mouse and mat,
and ready are to wield these ornaments
and shop our direful enemies to hell!

“Noble tailor, have there not been several times
when thou, with thy tape-measure, wouldst have lov’d
to strangle some obnoxious punter’s neck?
Aye, for certain. Well, today, Mr Tailor,
thou shalt use thy tape to pretty vantage!

“Honest baker, hast thou not, from time to time,
yearn’d to splatter a soggy splodge of dough
i’ th’ puffy faces of thy clientele?
Well, today, sirrah baker, yearn no longer,
for thy yeast shall raze many an enemy!

“Be it known, citizens, soldiers, traders,
yea, all you so stout-hearted warriors,
the posterity of our potent loins
shall read of this blest day in schooling books,
as sure as this sword sparkles i’ th’ sun.
Those tales shall speak of Timothy the cobbler
in the same sentence as these chivalrous knights
whom you see in shining metal hereabout.

“Brave Sir Frederick, my stalwart champion
shall be accounted lesser nor more great
than Derek the tinker or Harold Grabbit,
the keeper of the city brothel basement.

“The only men whom Fortune shall disdain
are those who have not march’d with us today:
those coward weedy cretins back at home,
religious zealots, sanctimonious priests
and those that are conscientious objectors.

“I’ll tell you what – long after we are buried,
and sons of ours do populate our city,
it won’t be ruddy conchies
whose names on plaques shall deck their temples’ walls.
You’ll find not one self-righteous vicar etch’d
nicely ’neath some flattering inscription.
’Tis your proud names that carvéd there shall be
for carving up the foe today with me!

“And if, though God forbid, it be today
that some of you end up in heaven’s ranks,
ye may well mock the jelly-liver’d scoundrels
who were too spook’d and limp to fight with us.
Ye may well sneer at them with funny faces
for they deserve no less and so do you!
But now, my friends, my worthy, trusty friends,
methinks I hear the ord’nance of the foe
clatt’ring its way o’er yonder mountain top.
Methinks I spy their curasses aglint.
The sun doth bounce upon their silver armour.
The time will not allow me further prattle,
for now the hour has come to face the fight
and thus I give my final wish to thee.

“Good luck! Fare well, ye clothy, true-bred men!
Go! Kill those smelly-bottom’d nincompoops
whiles I retire to yonder southward vantage,
therewith to view thy progress and success!
And as thou thunder o’er this blesséd turf,
let the empty, cavernous heavens sound
with thy bowel-cowering battle-cry.
Thus herald out your country’s honour’d motto:
Yell, ‘God for Nobby, Wiltshire and Saint Keith!’”