Football Poets

end of the season:
beginning of the reasons
to believe again

Here is the A plan: we play four-four-two,
with half-backs cutting in from either wing.

Two centre backs routinely clearing
to midfield men who play the forwards through.

Here is the main man: the ref’s lips […]

He dug up the pitch
and put up a parking lot,
with a flat back ten and the team
bus parked on the pen spot.

Mourinho’s catenaccio:
a smaller crowd off the field
than is on.
He dug up the pitch
and put up a p […]

*| = hit the post..
o*o = a clash of heads.
^^^^ = waterlogged pitch.
“o” = through the keepers hands.
/o = through the keepers legs.
= midfield diamond.
+ = cross.
+/ = high cross.
] = high wind.
( ) = who ate […]

No punts over the top,
we’ve done with sweeping.
Instead, a slow build-up
through midfield creeping.

We pass out to the flanks,
the winger crosses.
Strikers nod their thanks.
The long game closes.

We contemplate […]

Some run on the pitch
for their first kick,
others touch the grass,
lift the hand to their mouths,
kiss a finger, bless
themselves, and this
is a sacrament, a wish
for assistance to assess
the flight of the […]

It mattered that some early-season Saturday
a Butcher’s shop would close at twelve, and a factory
klaxon release a greased and grimed assembly line
to their bicycles, Lambrettas and Reliant Robins.

It mattered t […]

Through the dark,
through the storm,
through the wind and rain,

the forty thousand gathered here,
the millions on their home terrain;
players, staff, supporters help
the Families through their Sheffield […]

Two ways to wear your heart:
on your sleeve or on your scarf.

Ten years old, sitting on
the stanchions of the Kop.
Around my waist, my father’s arms,
around my neck a knitted scarf,
my Mother’s woolen […]

fantasy football-
Beckham bends it like Houghton
(in your dreams, David)

brain is boggled by
group table permutations
will have to wake kids

MADE IN MUNICH HAIKU
chanted at Germans:
are you Bayern in disguise?
ja, actually!

A TWIST OF THE KNIFE HAIKU
Germans stuck the D.
Agger in: nobody’s as
high as Joachim Löw

DODGY RHYMING HAIKU
the clean shirt ch […]

STOP THE RACISM HAIKU
the ball’s in their half
Poland and Ukraine will hope
they can kick it out
***
HELLENIC HAIKU
Karagounis and
Papadopolus assist
my shortest haiku
***
MATCH ABANDONED HAIKU
thundering a […]

karagounis and
papadopolus provide
my shortest haiku

crispin’s reminder:

stop this euro 2012

haiku hiatus!

like a red card needs suspension
like Viduka needs a pension
like a penalty needs tension
like an Old Firm game needs apprehension
we rely on you
like a Dalglish needs to mutter
like a groundsman needs a […]

Rita, Keith and I are in the British Legion
to choose a menu for the wake.

We’re at the end of the long bar.
It’s early afternoon and the Staff are busily
taking stock to the sound of music
piped through spe […]

Fourteen stationed for the cross:

It was never a free kick! This ponce
of a referee is on auto pilot –
the defender is innocent as a lamb chop.

This lot use Klinsmann as their roll model.
Their forwards dive […]

The chant was offensive,
the play was defensive,
when the black winger
shrugged off
the ‘Coco Pops’ jibe,
made a monkey
of the full back,
hit a banana shot
that snapped
crackled
and popped
from his boo […]

Having missed a score of chances,
the goal the scorer thought he’d scored
was scratched off the scoresheet for offside,

so the scoreline remained scoreless.
A win would have secured the club-
their name i […]