Football Poets

So here we are again
Ready and braced for
Another nine month marathon
Of Premier League hot air
And classic cameos
Local rivalries and
Household names,
Legendary spats,
Familiar friends
And foes, […]

Gareth penned a letter
His decision he laid bare
And he passed it on to Postie
Who passed it on to Soho Square

The F.A. suits read Southgate’s note
Then went out to drink and dine
And ten hours later t […]

Two nations went to Germany
In search of Silverware.
Now read these lines of poetry
To see how they both fared.

The Scots played with true grit and pride,
But they could not progress.
Their fans […]

Onto the Wembley pitch Eddie races.
Wearing his jacket, tie and braces!
Fleet of foot, he leaves behind the law.
And why not Eddie, 2-2 now the score!
This is the famous Eddie Cavanagh tale.
One cop […]

A haunting silence
Falls across English
Football once again
Like a hollow bowl
Of emptiness
So near and yet so far
Another tournament
That promised jewels
On German foothills
But only yielded
A pitiful […]

Roberto Mancini and Zlatko Dalic
and so what ? Who would have thought about this :
Roberto Mancini once visited
Medjugorje in 2011
He made pilgrimage in that
picturesque region of Herzegovina
He prayed in […]

And so the nation bids farewell
To Gareth Southgate
The one man who immortalised
Waistcoats, beards
And smart designer shirts
On Sunday at least
Quite possibly Fred Perry,
Gucci, some may already […]

So it’s not coming home
as England lose to Spain,
it just wasn’t meant to be
for Gareth Southgate and Harry Kane.
So it’s not coming home
a case of so near but so far away,
but the Spanish were the better […]

even though we swear we won’t
something sucks us in
armchair managers emerge
when the games begin
once again we do it all
ev’ry time it seems
caught up in the flow and vibe
caught up in the […]

Who cares if it wasn’t a pen, against the Dutch,
When luck rolls its dice, we’ve not had much,
Maradona’s handball in ’86,
A dirty trick that history couldn’t fix,
In France 98, all our hopes were marred, […]

And so we bow our heads again
The final word from Berlin
Is Auf Wiedersehen Gareth
Or maybe not
Once again England slump
To the ground
Heads buried in silent
Incomprehension
The pain of […]

So near and yet so far….
and yet here we are
beaten finalists
beaten by a better team
who tramped all over
our burgeoning dream

Worthy winners Spain
brought pain
to our shores…
we rowed our oars
to […]

the flags have all appeared again
on buildings and on cars
except the Farmer’s Market
or posh and trendy bars
my wall chart hangs resplendent
a multi-caloured sheet
a hand-filled record of it all
of […]

Oh, England, England
How your country needs you
To just win, nothing else
Nothing more
Picturesque, rural
Spread out like a picnic
Hamper over the fields
And timeless meadows
Across the matchless
Lake […]

We stand at the water’s edge….
shall we succumb
to Salacia’s salty stare
and drown in our sorrow?
Or will tomorrow’s
final
be the time to draw upon
our modern armada – a flotilla of faithful fans
egging […]

So here we are back
In Berlin
On Sunday evening
Not a sign of a divisive wall
That stopped dialogue
For so many years
Political childishness
Between West and East Germany
Meanwhile in the bodegas
Of […]

England in final
it’s coming home isn’t it
Southgate jubilant ?
Against Netherlands
they did play a lot better
deserved victory.
They have rode their luck
and huffed and puffed in matches
but never gave […]

I recall two similar events involving
16 years old Wayne Rooney in an Everton shirt

16 years old Lamine Yamal in the Spanish shirt

You know
The same
Everton v Arsenal 16 years old Rooney
Spain v […]

nights like this are special
times like these are rare
savour ev’ry moment
when you know you’re there
you can call it fortune
who cares what they say
when that moment happens
failure falls awa […]