Football Poets

Whenever the World Cup comes around, you can bet your bottom dollar that many’ll
Plump for Brazil in this super-hyped, global quadrennial,
Supposedly playing their football with an infectious j […]

Protect us, Lord, from former players spouting
their clichéd tripe when some team’s had a routing.
Whether they’re on radio or tweeting,
they know why this or that team took a beating
and send me off to go a […]

Eight years old and through on goal,
the striker understood his role.
With cool aplomb, he tapped it round
the keeper and then went to ground.
The goal a-begging but he chose
to emulate death’s final t […]

There’s airtime to fill, column inches to write.
There must be new headlines from morning to night.
We must be the place where the lads get their kicks,
where the mono-dimensional fan gets his fix.
No matter t […]

I heard them curse the lack of silverware,
those diehard fans from lonely Ross-on- Wye,
still yearning hopelessly for football’s heir.

I gazed upon the concrete bridge to Skye,
that distant island ‘ […]

For six-year-olds, the training’s done –
they’ve run and passed and passed and run
and dribbled slow around red cones
with just the minimum of moans
and learnt the art of ball control
and shooting at a cone- […]

Orange leather footballs in the snow,
when struck with force from some attacker’s toe,
would sting but you could never let it show.

Arctic troughs could change the status quo
and games that went ahead w […]

The ‘i’s are dotted, ‘t’s are crossed
and Tolka Park appears lost.
The football ground will pay the cost.
Financial targets? Sure, we never met them.

Shels will go and share with Bohs,
their bittere […]

I miss the old clock at the Ballybough end
that used to run slow when we had to defend.
We’d play to it, pray to it,
some folk would swear at it.
And when we conceded, we’d voice our despair at it.

But oh […]

There doesn’t seem to be a clear pace-setter,
careering through the fixtures with incision.
There’s not one club that seems a whole lot better
than all the other teams in the division.
Everybody’s waiting to se […]