Football Poets

Liverpool’s last season nadir: when Jimmy Traore
failed to clear, hoofed into his own net at Turf Moor
for a shameful exit in the Third Round of the FA Cup.

Now it’s different, vows Rafa, Champs League […]

Boxing Day, 2005: a Peter Crouch header goes
down as a keeper’s own goal, and video shows
lots of Premiership handballs the refs don’t see;
the fans see them and the commentators agree:
clear penalties not given. […]

The holy day approaches–
Boxing Day, when the emissaries
from St. James’ visit Anfield’s hallowed ground:

Saint Michael and Saint Alan,
Owen – England and ex-Reds’ goalscoring hero,
irrepressible Michael, boy […]

Gerrard sits despondent,
all our hopes come to nothing.
But John Arne Riise has it right
— from the depths of last winter when
Chelsea beat us in the Cardiff Carling final,
we rose to take the Champions […]

O’Malley wakes as ever at 3 am without an alarm,
does his ablutions, mutters prayers for the dead,
the sick. He’ll do the same later. It never hurts

to give God an extra nudge. In the cecropia tree,
a que […]

Does Mourinho hope
for failure by the Reds to
prove them unworthy?

Gerrard Cisse Crouch
put the ball in the net:
FIFA World Club Champs:

Benitez plans
the battle order, quiet
tactician Rafa.

Liverpool […]

In off the keeper. Ah, I forgot that one, but it still counts,
and puts the ‘Pool on the road to third in the Premiership:

Crouch shoots and the ball rebounds off Leighton Baines
in a sickening arc toward goal, […]

United had balding Englishman Bobby Charlton,
flaxen-haired Scot Dennis Law,
and later, mop-topped Welshman Mark Hughes.
All three served United steadfastly and well.
–But there’ll be only one wee Georgie […]

A famous cartoon by Sir John Tenniel in “Punch” March 1890:
The Kaiser rests his elbows nonchalently on the ship’s rail
as Bismarck descends. So too Sir Alex and Roy Keane:
where next for United now the Pilot has […]

I am going to a bar in cold and windy Washington, D.C.
to watch Liverpool play on TV in the Champions League.
It is the Lucky Bar and I hope the establishment will be lucky

for us once again. But I am […]

Not a poet, no, although Toby was a bard
of the bottle no doubt, with a song
and a rhyme, his thick red beard
under his Harris tweed hat,

no eyes to be seen, his briar pipe
fumigating the Irish air with […]

In off his bum
he’ll leave us numb.

In off his little toe
he’ll end his woe.

In off his big ear
— It’s a goal, clear?

In off his nose
— to beak it, over everyone he rose!

In off his sacroiliac
— he’s a […]

Don’t count him out, don’t scoff
with his helicopter whirling
from his Welsh mansion
up to St. James’s,
millionaire footballer,
England’s savior,
Shearer’s partner.
Don’t count him out, don’t scoff,
he always has […]

A Peter Crouch figure has come to table-top footy,
the six foot seven inch striker being offered on ebay
for five quid though sounds just like the real thing.

Pete of Subbuteo World, the UK’s sole supplier said: […]

Center!
And Peter Crouch
heads the ball in the net.
No slouch, our six-foot-seven match
winner.

Christopher T. George

Yes indeed the world’s going there in a handbasket,
we all should wish for football fairness
but it’s hard to achieve with thugs
on the football field and off
& bombs in backpacks in
the […]

Boom-ah Boom-ah, it’s a big night as Salvator bangs El Bomba,
with the flags of all nations bedecking his hat,
he bangs the drum in La Barra Brava
as Bobby Boswell puts D.C. United
up one-nill on a sneak […]

“All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football”
Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Football, boxing, swimming, oui, you did it all, till TB ended
your career as a goalkeeper. What football lost, […]

Fair play is the maxim
on the football field,
do no harm to others

but though we make that pledge,

others scheme and plan to do
elsewise — so precise
as they devise mayhem, misery.

Christopher T. George

Steven Gerrard turns down £100,000 a week at Liverpool,
refuses to sign a new contract, tells the world he’s leaving
Anfield for another club. Wait 24 hours, he turns around, says
he never wanted to leave, says […]