Football Poets

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

sometimes we judge our players
by the way that they behave
a striker for his scoring
and a keeper for his saves
we even tag some heroes
and one deserves that claim
a man who didn’t just save goals […]

they say that it’s impractical they say we’ve gotta go
they say we really have to move but some of us say no
and yes it needs improvements the parking and the ground
but nothing is impossible that’s what […]

if you were alive child woman or man
you remember the day still
like yesterday
like Lennon like Kennedy
or the day we landed on the moon
the day we woke to realise
we’d lost a football team

that […]

Mishi was a one-off a real true fan
leaves a huge gap where he always used to stand
held his club like a jewel in his hand
followed them the way few could ever understand

poured out his feelings at the […]

(NB This poem is by ‘Dulwich Poet’ (Mishi Dulwich Hamlet)

Survival
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People say if they cut me
I’d bleed Pink and Blue
I hate to disappoint
But it simply ain’t true.
I’m as ordin […]

unassuming style
crucial in our finest hour
Martin Peters shone

whatever happened to hitching?
and can you remember when kids would hitch home for Christmas
to waiting parents on frosty December mornings?

a different world then – hap-less map-less and sat-navless
sussing […]

one Christmas in the trenches
they stood in mud and sand
their loved ones and their football
a distant far off land –
the snow lay thick as thick could be
a bitter chill did spread
behind the sand bags and t […]

there has to be a space there has to be a place
for every single member of the human race
staring at a problem that hasn’t gone away
underneath the suface it’s lingering today
kick it out.. ignore it but […]

it’s so hard to imagine now
way way back in time
the birth of little Forest Green
in eighteen eighty nine
the little hilltop village team
whose changing hut was found
behind the Jovial Forester
a good […]

It’s five to three on a Saturday
The usual crowd wander in
There’s a guy in a full kit beside me
But he reckons our chances are thin.

He says: “mate are we up for a good one?
‘Cause you never what you […]

A weekend like so many
We plan them all life long
We sit or stand as football fans
In silence or in song
And something seems to join us
Our work is left behind
A few hours at the football
With winning on […]