Football Poets

there’s an eerie silence as I head off to bed –
the silence is natural
for I’m always the last to settle

but there’s a sense of devastation that permeates the corridors
a sense of damnation and enforce […]

Like a gnarled old hand, the spindly tree spread out above me
Stooped over the country lane
Its silhouetted fingers, tickling the hedge-hemmed curious calves

Lying in wait somewhere, hidden and camouflaged […]

Good teachers are like stars
Lighting paths for the has been
Wolves B against Walsall Wood
After trials aged fourteen

Lad from Ironbridge, Shropshire
Once let go for his size
Was first to reach a hundred […]

If I wasn’t Ossie for the day
Then I’d be the Cat
For he was our hero
And that was that

All over the goalbox
He’d leap and spring
“There’s only one Peter Bonetti”
Oh, how the Shed would sing

And now […]

Days stretched into weeks
No football, at all
Football is just a game, say those who don’t get it
To us, it’s all we’ve ever known
the centre of everything we’ve planned
Friendlies, cup, home and away, […]

Second only to Chopper Harris
In Chelsea playing games
Edged on clean sheets by Petr Cech
Some of the clubs greatest names

A part of the World Cup-winning squad
Bonetti didn’t get to stand on the l […]

I was twelve when you first made your debut
on a long ago cold March day
and I stood down the front in the Shed with my mates
as we did ev’ry time in our way
and we watched you as like a magician
you would […]

Country stuck on lockdown
Can’t travel or go anywhere
Football Grounds are deserted
To what seem like germ warfare
All fans are in solitary confinement
Yet many ignore the pleas
Do as the Government t […]

The nest-builders are as busy as ever….
a delightfully dappled thrush appears at one of my garden pots
checks surreptitiously for danger
instinctively knows I am fastened behind the bars, of toughened g […]

I have never known a time so scary
Where football came to a halt
And should the season end so soon
It won’t be football’s fault
This nasty man-made virus has caused all sport to cease
And even the Champions L […]

Liverpool 2-1 Bournemouth

Hendo misses the action
With a hamstring injury
Klopp scoffs at the mere thought
Of comparisons with Shankly

They toppled another record
By Shankly’s men in 72
22 Anfield w […]

Watford 3-0 Liverpool

Liverpool’s unbeaten season hopes
Reach the end of the Vicarage Road
They were second best at every turn
In every aspect it showed

Watford now move out of the zone
Thanks to a […]

A bird flew north over Italy
Over Naples’ volcanic home
Which worshipped Maradona in his prime
Flew over Lazio and the Olimpico
Climbed up its high ellipse
Heading for the evening sun
On her distant seven h […]

Wherever we find ourselves
Life we know on hold
Terraces we stood on closed
Seats in stands lie cold
Rituals on match days
Little lost routines
How they seem quite futile now
In these current […]

Football was played when I lived through horror
In those fearful uncertain days I could listen
BBC WORLD SERVICE
in my Sarajevo flat

In those early days of the war
I was stressed but I listened to […]

way back in the fifties new Queen on the throne
all we had was comics in our basement home
tennis balls ice cream vans football in the street
coalman came on Fridays life was so complete
Blow Football […]

Usually, it’s an acerbic reaction
An emphatic ‘bothered’ and ‘bemoaned’
Whence learning of:
“All matches postponed”

But this time around
We nod and agree when it’s intoned
For containment of […]

It’s not possible for Liverpool to play behind ‘closed doors’
We might not hear them but there will always be 96 roars.
And the spirit of other Reds, ashes buried in the kop goal.
Anfield can never be empty […]

there are places where a coat of paint would do right
you need thermals even in the August games
the raffle can quite often be the highlight
but something draws you back each time again
the crowd is often […]

Liverpool 3-2 West Ham

With the Reds far from full throttle
Gini is released from the Red bottle
Issa Diop’s headed goal
Can’t temper that winning roll

Pablo Fornals gives the Kop a shake
Nine min […]