Football Poets

Two points away from our fourth promotion in eight years-
get ready for more celebrations, mixed with joyful tears!

But what will next season bring? More of the same?
A catalogue of brave defeats? The […]

Now Tony’s gone and hope is fading fast.
We were promoted full of confidence… and finished last.
We played fancy football, won all the plaudits,
But all we’ve got to show for it is a parachute payment in the […]

I’d been collecting them for weeks.
Panini stickers. 5p a pack.
Ripped them open eagerly as soon
as I left the shop. Hoping to see the shiny foil
club badges or the few ‘Wants’ I still needed.

I had a […]

(or Free Ticket to Colchester)

Colchester at home. Doesn’t exactly inspire
the greatest of excitement, does it?
But friends were going to their caravan
for the week and their tickets
skirted the halfway line. […]

You know you’ve made it when
twenty five thousand fans
chant your name and proclaim you
as their King.

You know you’ve made it when
uncles and mates still recount the time
they met you on holiday in Spain
and […]

A non-descript, nothing kinda game
(certainly not one to go down in the annals of fame
and be written about and told over and over again
in the snugs of pubs while the pouring rain
lashed down outside on the […]

Standing in the Brummie Road, circa 1978:
Dad’s a few rows back, hands in pockets
scarf around his mouth like a terrorist.
I’m down the front behind the lads
hanging off the fences, scarves tied to their […]

Back in the good old days
when Albion’s winning ways
and the ‘Three Degrees’ were the talk of football,
the Albion directors received an unexpected call
to become the first European team
to realize a footballing […]

‘Next up at The Hawthorns’ announced the tannoy, ‘Stoke.’
‘I hate playing them’ said the elderly bloke
sat next to me as I sank deeper into my coat,
a draw not really enough to raise hopes of staying afloat.
‘If […]

The curse of the ex-Albion star:
no matter who they are,
what league they play in, or how far
they’ve fallen from grace, or what smoke-filled bar
they now frequent- send them out on the same park
they could score […]

WBA? What bizarre acronym?

Watford blown away
with breath-taking attacks
Wolves beaten again
with beautiful abandon.
We breakdown all-comers
with brilliant aplomb!
Waltzing Brunt accelerates…
win bonuses […]

The things that fans say
are, often, as entertaining as the play
on dreary Wednesday nights in December-
but, a few, are the ones you really remember:

Like Arsenal fans offering to race
Man U fans back to their […]

Not fish and chips as a sea front lunchtime treat.
Not a rose that, by any other name, would still smell as sweet.

Not the smell of hops as you pass the brewery door.
Not the whiff of balti that leaves you […]

WBA:
We’re Back Again.

Back in the Big Time,
back for the third time of asking
but, this time, we’re relaxing
because three is a significant number-

Three little pigs, three blind mice,
three League Cup finals – […]

I once played at The Hawthorns,
and we had the Home dressing room:

the walk-in bath like something out of Cleopatra,
(the banter that it should have been filled with milk,
and then the scouse accents intermingled […]

So near and yet so frustratingly far,
another year away from the glistening Premier star
while we twinkle at a lower height
where we can only distantly view the light
given off by the array of foreign skill
we […]

Albion vs. Derby; May 2007

We were the Good Guys- the stylists, skillful, favourites,
the Fletcher Christian of Wembley’s Bounty.
They were the sloggers, the hoofers, the plodders,
the Captain Blyth that was […]

Here we are again, managerless and rudderless,
stuck in mid-table and in a mess,
promotion favourites just a few weeks ago,
now without a clue how the season’s going to go.

Who’s it going to be? Curbs has already […]

Midweek, mid-table, midway between hope and despair…
to put your fans through this torment is hardly very fair

And then, as Half Time looms on this freezing cold night,
we follow the throng to the smell and the […]

I’ll never forget the Saturday afternoon
the videoprinter went barking mad-

It began with what seemed like a chance result:
East Fife 5 Forfar 4
then it followed it up with a plausible slip:
Bolton 2 Pressed On […]