Obsessed as we are with Beckham’s toe
Well I’m sitting here in the garden, sitting under the apple tree with nobody else but me, having just dug the potato patch and now I’m grabbing a breather before the wife arrives home with new orders and the kids with new demands for money.
End of season…Radio 5 on … a cup of tea… beautiful April afternoon… so perfectly English…A little moment of leisure – “A dull life this if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare” etc..
Which reminds me – if anyone out there is a fan of W.H. Davies, the tramp poet creator of these famous lines, then our musical-poetical-dramatical radio ballad of his life is available from us for the princely sum of £10. “Days That Have Been”, the Stroud Football Poets first CD, grew out of a commissioned play. Davies lived the last few years of his life in Nailsworth (that’s where Forest Green F.C. is) near Stroud. A fascinating cove, he lost a leg in Canada, riding the rails in a bid to get to the Yukon Gold Rush. After that, he went on a peg leg tramp round England, hawking his poems and pins, sleeping in the workhouse and in doss houses, until patronised by G.B. Shaw and Edward Thomas. Fame and some fortune quickly followed and he was lionised by high society around the time of the Great War. It’s a good story – and well told by us on the CD!
But for the moment, I shall enjoy the excitement of the last days of the season – and then enjoy the leisure of that brief interlude before the World Cup takes over our lives. More on the website about our ideas for that e’er long, but for the moment, keep those Beckham poems coming in!
“A dull life this if full of woe,
Obsessed as we are with Beckham’s toe.”
About This Site
Welcome to Football Poets -- a club for all football poets, lovers of football and lovers of (alternative) poetry. Discover poets in every league from respected internationals at the top of their game to young hopefuls in the school playground.
Publish your football poems here and then discuss them with your team mates and fans. We're archived by The British Library, so your masterpieces are in the safe hands of a world-class keeper. What a result!
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Latest Poems
joe morris
3rd September 2024
Denys E. W. Jones
3rd September 2024
joe morris
26th August 2024
Crispin Thomas
26th August 2024
joe morris
22nd August 2024
Mike Bartram
20th August 2024
Phil Brennan
20th August 2024
joe morris
17th August 2024
Rowan Waller
17th August 2024
Alex Saynor
12th August 2024
Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
26th July 2024 at 6:25 pm
Great poem Mike Bartram. Eddie was a legend, affectionately known in Liverpool as, “the first hooligan.” Even the hoolies were well dressed in those days. The amazing thing was he was only 26 when that picture was taken. He’d played for Everton youth team and was well known to the players. He never got arrested. They threw him out and he climbed back in, just in time for Derek Temples winner.
I used the picture of him being tackled to the ground on the front cover of my book, “Once Upon a rhyme in Football.” It’s worth looking on youtube and finding the re-enactment of the Wembley scene. Frank Skinner and Baddiel went around to Eddies home in the 1990’s and acted it out on the green outside. It’s hilarious, especially all the effort they put in to get Eddie sober enough to shoot the scene.
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10th July 2024 at 6:07 pm
Hi Crispin,
I don’t know if you’ve see the picture in social media today…
a picture of a teenage Lionel Messi cradling a baby in Africa as part of a photoshoot…. the family had won a lottery to have their baby pictured with him….
the photographer has just revealed that the baby is actually in fact Lamine Yamal!!!!
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26th May 2024 at 2:30 pm
Hi Denys…
Re Man City:
OK it was 20 years ago but Criag Wilson did write this and a few others on them back in 04/05.
BTW I’m more Forest Green Rover since 2014 (and Chelsea) these days . I drum and am a standing season ticket holder .
Best
Crispin
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29th April 2024 at 2:47 pm
Hi Denys,
Yes Richard Williams you’re a brilliant wordsmith, my friend. When I first saw your football poetry I thought it was the superb Guardian sports and music writer. I once had the honour of sitting next to Richard Williams while at the Independent on the sports desk. He writes about music and sport with immense knowledge and authority. I’ve read a couple of Richard’s books recently. Great writer rather like you Richard Williams the Pompey fan. Congratulations on promotion.
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28th April 2024 at 5:59 pm
Thanks Denys. Yes your replay poem was superb.
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26th April 2024 at 4:46 pm
Nice work, Joe. You were quick off the mark with that! Good one from Richard Williams too I see.
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25th April 2024 at 7:33 pm
Hi Denys,
Thanks mate. I’ll do it now.
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25th April 2024 at 1:56 pm
Thanks Joe,
you might like to write a poem yourself on the same subject…
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23rd April 2024 at 4:03 pm
Hi Denys
With you all the way on the abolition of FA Cup replays. What are they doing to the game?
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23rd April 2024 at 3:59 pm
Hi Crispin,
Yes sorry mate. Villa are still in Europe. Mistake rectified.
Cheers
Joe
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