Football Poets

Last seen leaving ‘The Hawthorns’
some considerable time following
the 2-0 defeat of Crystal Palace
which, apparently, secured promotion
back to the top flight after seventeen years
of purgatory.

Last seen […]

In class the next day,
half were in Heaven, half in Hell.
Everyone had something to say,
half full of gloating, half took it well.

We’ll be up next season-
we’ll pass you on the way back down, one said.
You’ve […]

Calling all sports writers:
bow your heads in shame!
All those who scoffed and wrote us off-
will you now accept the blame?

Mr. Mullery and Andy Gray-
have you anything to say?

Sky TV and Grandstand-
you should […]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Remember this moment – chisel it in stone.
Silence from the Molineux, while we bang the drum
To signal our fond farewell to Division One:

Let aeroplanes circle moaning […]

(to be sung to the classic ‘It’s Got to be Perfect’ by Fairground Attraction)

It’s Scott Dobie-e-e-e-e-e-e perfect,
it’s Scott Dobie-e-e-e-e-e-e worth it.
Too many people take second best
but I won’t take […]

Can I just point out
that this evens things up-
(not to mention our far superior record
against you in cup competitions).
You can’t say it anymore:
‘We’ve beaten you more
than you’ve beaten us’.
Must be […]

Sometimes,
work send you on exotic trips
to the furthest depths in the back of beyond-
like Smethwick.

Occasionally,
you get sent on a free weekend
to mountains and lakes;
to shops selling army knives
(complete […]

Who’s the biggest team in the Black Country now?

Hand in hand with the Palace fans,
doing the conga across the centre circle;
a small lad volleying a huge beach ball
into the Smethwick End goal;
my mate […]

A no-score draw with Queen’s Park Rangers…
the future’s now filled with horrible dangers.
The penultimate weekend and still deep in the mire,
our season of torment going down to the wire.

Tuesday night and […]

The contents of the burgers and pies
at most football stadia, are as suspect
as the meat in the balti’s of Birmingham
or the kebabs of street vendors
in the Phillippines.

Ernest Hemingway would have been hard […]

Eleven games in
and the radio says
we re promotion hopefuls.

I can hardly believe it,
after Awful August:
we couldn’t find our way through the Forest,
were crapped on by pigeons in Barnsley,
and were bottom of […]

It’s becoming the eighth wonder
of the modern world-
how we can keep on winning
and still stay eighth!

Don’t misunderstand me-
I’d have settled for eighth
at the start of the season
(I’d have bitten your hand […]

In desperate need of consolation,
I delve into the hanger-dark
of the bottom of the wardrobe,
looking for the pile of programmes
chronicling the memories of happier summers.

Snapshot moments vie for supreme- […]

Forget your Reds v. Blues-
that’s really old news
Or your City vs. United-
that won’t get me over-excited
Don’t suggest your Forest’s versus County-
there’s only one derby that really counts
and it’s played in the […]

The only loyal managers
are the crap ones.

Ardiles took us to Wembley-
then forgot to get back on the coach!
(Should have counted his legs
then we’d have known he was a cockroach!)

Fat Ron brought up the […]

We’ll score again
don’t know where, don’t know when,
but I know we’ll score again
some sunny day……….

Things are getting desperate now…
we get happy-clappy
at crossing the half-way line;
our goal […]

Forget Driller Killer,
The Exorcist is child’s play
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a barrel of laughs
after the gore-fest I endured today.

Never again will I press the fatal numbers
as, in disbelief, I began to […]

Bobby Gould dug his own grave.
With each shovel-full of incompetence,
he chipped another letter of his gravestone
till, at last, it was goal-deep.

Proud Preston were the visitors;
the play-offs gone, thanks to […]

Hardly the glory days
of the Fifties and Sixties;
when fifty thousand
regularly craned over the backs of heads
to catch shutter-glimpses
of Allen, Robson and Hope.

But still special.

The Second Division […]

You’d never been to a live game,
you said
so I chose the Plymouth match
(three easy points to get you started).

We scored the first goal and the last.
Pity,
about the five they scored in-between
(yes, I know I […]