Football Poets

Shed Loads of Memories..(Chelsea Loathers Look Away Now!)

Shed Loads of Memories..(Chelsea Loathers Look Away Now!)

Blue Is The Colour..Football Is The Game
He’s Got A Shed ..And Crispin is his name!

Hi all…since I shall in all probability, never again be invited to appear in my own Shed and The Shed on TV again, I’m reprinting the BBC take on my recent now legendary(!) appearance on BBC 1 Inside Out Mon Feb 28.

Always one to blow my own and The Football Poets trumpet, ruthlessly exploiting all media forms out there, if you missed it, here it is. If you copy and visit the BBC web-link below, there are a few pics too which kind of explain it better. The film itself is a moving piece on Sheds by loyal Blues fan and film-maker Ray Hough and it went out just before Eastenders too. Thus exceeding my previous best ever Glastonbury audience* of 20,000 by millions…(*where I compered and opened for Rolf Harris in my Darth Vader helmet but that’s another well over-told story) …anyways here it is..if anyone wants to see an actual pic of me and my shed please e-mail me on editors@footballpoets.org and I’ll forward a j-peg…until i figure how to get new pics onto our totally un-funded and desperately in need of an artisic overhaul-site!

The film bit about me is based on my poem Shed (which I’ll also reprint here for the um-teenth time), and how I turned my old shed, complete with corrugated roof, into a blue and white football shrine to the original one, now demolished, at Stamford Bridge – in which i literally ‘grew up’. I am stuffing it with my memorabilia and memories. It’s also about how I do actuallty sit in it and listen to the games on Radio Five. I mean how sad is that? Anyways Auntie BBC liked the idea, my shed got a new lick of paint in the process, and they invited me up to Chelsea and also came and filmed me in it..the rest… like The Shed, is history!

PS….about my poems..getting a bit more Chelsea-ish..!?
having tried to be incredibly neutral for the last four years alongside various wonderful one-club besotted poems – I do..,as the years whizz by….and of course being top too.. find myself writing more and more about my chosen team, aided largely by having worked there recently, getting ‘back-stage’, meeting Roy Bentley etc..and getting to more games again..at last…and of course thinking about my beloved Sheds (both of em)…Enough! Sorry ! Crispin

BBC 1 WEB-SITE

Shed Of Dreams

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/insideldn/insideout/series7/garden_sheds.shtml

“Crispin’s shed is a homage to the Stamford Bridge Shed
Poet Crispin Thomas is a self confessed sheddist and has waxed lyrical about one shed in particular.

Spending many happy afternoons under the leaky roof of The Shed at Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea FC, Crispin wrote a poem in its honour.

“I wrote the poem about the nostalgia and the feeling that I had when I used to stand in The Shed and how I felt when they pulled it down. That place had been a refuge for so long, a gathering point where the sounds of the fans could be heard.”

It might have had a leaky roof but Crispin has fond memories
“So I thought, ‘I’m going to turn my shed into The Shed and that’s what I did!.”

TWO POEMS FOLLOW….’SHED’ & ‘IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHED’..
am also currently working on THE BACK OF THE SHED..for really early memories..

Shed (Revisited 05)

now my nan had a shed in the garden
and the bloke down the road’s got one too
but there was a shed that i lived in for years
it was magic and rusty and blue
and the iron was all corrugated
the rooftop was leaky and old
you got soaked to the skin when the rain came in
but the Shed at the Bridge had soul

and we clapped underneath with the faithful
and the skinheads much later on
and the endless fat blokes with their bugles
how the memories go on and on
being squashed in like sardines at cup-ties
when most of the crowd were all ‘pissed’
when they moved to and fro you just had to let go
it was crazy to try to resist
it was epic and concrete and awesome
sixty eight thousand or so
i got passed down the front on the hands of the crowd
to watch Greavesie get five in a row

but when tragedy struck we all realised
at Bradford and Hillsborough we knew
that nothing’s as precious as this life itself
and the days of the Shed grew few

so i put up a shed in my garden-
got my memories and dreams in there too
and i go in there now to remember
in my own shed all painted and blue
yes i go in there now to remember on weekends with Radio Five
and i think to myself as i stand in my shed
i’m the luckiest Blues fan alive
cos i don’t have no nice numbered seating
no that ain’t a part of my dream
cos there’s something strange about having to sit
when you wanna stand up for your team

and I’m left with my shed in my garden
and the bloke down the road’s got one too
but there was a shed that i lived in for years
it was magic and rusty and blue

and the iron was all corrugated
and the rooftop was leaky and old
you got soaked to the skin when the rain came in
but the Shed at the Bridge had soul

© Crispin Thomas 2000

——————————————————————————–

In The Middle Of The Shed

on nights like this the heart returns

to where our passioned hearts would burn

along that heaving Fulham Road

to where the floodlights loomed and glowed –

the push and shove before those gates

in frantic cup-tie queues and waits

that snaked through streets for miles and miles

to squeeze at last through old turnstiles

and climb those steps to claim our place

that magic concrete sacred space

where you and I on dreams were fed

within the middle of The Shed –

how different then the atmosphere

when we would stand and roar and cheer

and yell and bay for hours and hours

as though empowered with super-powers

where you and I both old and young

were crammed so tight and sung and sung

those anthem songs in anarchy

so famous in our loyalty

away away to every ground

we bathed thoses terraces in sound

from Geoffrey to the CFC

wherever you or I would be

we carried hopes with hearts of stone

like snails our corrugated home

and jumped and leapt and screamed on high

until our voices all ran dry

when relegation hung like thread

within the middle of The Shed –

an hour or so before each game

we’d meet to lift the vibe again

and raise our hopes to one day see

success from mediocrity

but often never knew or saw

exactly who had missed or scored

when hopes would fly at fever pitch

the underdogs against the rich

where instant wit and jokes combined

to quell those butterflies inside

that to this day will still remain

in nevousness before each game

to banish ridicule and scorn

that lingered since this club was born

to reach these current dizzy heights

and Euro glory heartstop nights

we stood and stretched above the heads

within the middle of The Shed

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