Football Poets

Spain, in pain, will soon be on the plane
No more tiki, no more taka; guys, it’s time to think again.

Vorsprung durch Technik, the future looks bright
The Germans bask in sunshine, now they’ve seen the Muller […]

Sunday morning dawns,
Glum as the face of Adrian Chiles,
Note the familiar worried look of Gary Lineker
Trying to console a nation of Gascoignes
Trying to regain possession.

Dispossessed,
We have lost […]

Ten minutes to kick-off.
We are part of a waiting world.
On the field, a synchronisation of watches.
Sceptical footballers make
Nervous signs of the cross
And glance heavenward
One stands palms […]

My first memory was Sweden in nineteen fifty eight.
Climbing out of bed, aged seven,  I crept downstairs
To the strains of the German anthem
“Glorious things of thee are spoken”
Felt joy as plucky Sweden won t […]

José’s chance has gone (?).

Parked two buses last Sunday –

Will he miss the boat?

Like a ramping and roaring lion he leads the line
First among foragers, fleet past the feet of the foe.
Old men watch “El Pistolero” and think of Nathaniel
The black-and-white Lion of Vienna, long ages ago […]

Every time I watch my team in person
They lose.
A jinx
That’s how unlucky I am.
It pains me so much
That before the next match
I’m going to go into the bookmakers
To place a sizeable bet on them los […]

Attack
The other team.
Strive
While there is still time
With a minute to the break
And the game in the balance
It’s up to you now
To grasp a win
In this game of two halves

In this half of the game
It d […]

England’s Howard Webb
Slicing slantwise with his arm
As he blows for time.

Graham Poll winning
Well-earned fame in World Cups
(Not counting those cards)

Gigi Collina
His exorbitant eyes s […]

The modern stadia with their grand designs
Beguile us with their flowing lines
At the Emirates, Reebok and City’s Eastlands
They seem to say “Look Ma, no stands”
Just one o’er- arching elegant wave
No wonder […]

Amid the shouting and the noise
Spare a thought for David Moyes.
Last night he had an awful dream
About a day when his precious team
Has lost away in Athens, and he
Must face a journalist or three
And, worse […]

The finest stadium I’ve ever seen
Is the Estadio Benito Villamarín.
It belongs to Betis, in the south of Spain,
Last week I boarded an Easyjet plane
And visited the orange trees in the town of Seville
If I cl […]

Tom Immortalised
Navigating Stamford Bridge
Through water – “The splash”

Tom the elusive
Blackburn’s Leyland on the deck
The goal now beckons

Tom the reliable
Bert Trautmann dives to his right […]

Of all the vertical things in my life
Saint James’ Park stands proud.
On the cover of an old programme
A magpie preened, enjoying a birds’ eye view
Of the soaring pylons at the Gallowgate end.
Along one sid […]

Was it Coco the clown who invaded the pitch
In the Wembley Cup Final of nineteen sixty six?
The Evertonian frolicked and leapt,
With a tug on his braces (they scarcely kept
His great trousers up), then he […]

Oh Philip Larkin, we need you at this hour
As Hull’s famous poet, you could silence that shower
Who want to change Hull City’s name
Into Tigers – it’s basically greed that’s to blame
Are they cuddly little […]

The Football Poets, a noble name
In the literary Hall of Fame.
The rhythm of the foot deceives the eye
If a Football Poet comes hurtling by.
Metaphysical or a shade too physical
High Romantic or downright […]

Our final appearances
Lined up against the Pennines
Like distant chimney stacks
Preston nineteen sixty-four, Burnley sixty-two
Blackburn nineteen –sixty, Bolton fifty-eight.

Memories, like stray b […]