Football Poets

If Jesus returns
To Liverpool we then move
St John inside left.

I think of you
This same day that comes round
Each year
As the passage of time
Between us
Lengthens
Until by grace
We meet again

The Reds win or lose
Are bond between
Father and Daughter
I […]

Some hearts are scrawled on walls in chalk
Splayed from the incessant hiss of graffiti mischief
Deliciously illicitly scribbled
Tagged and snagged
With initials and street sentiment
Others are carved […]

We fall in love with football
Almost unconsciously
The exact moment like birth not remembered
Perhaps fragments of infancy posited
Alongside childhood dreams
And growing pains

The sweet confusions […]

When football is not quite the Beautiful Game
It’s flowing locks locked down and cramped
Messed up in clumsy tackles and mistimed passes
And our hearts choked in pandemic pandemonium
Glued to tellys and […]

A windswept beach and the Gormley statues
The footprints of Ancelotti across the Crosby sands
And now Marine Fc in that self same corner of the world
A club named after the local pub
Enjoy the magic of the […]

As a youngster falling in love with football
And all things Liverpool Fc
I watched Colin Bell in his pomp for City
A blur of blonde brilliance
Bright shining in light blue
His fireworks lit up Maine Road […]

You stand quietly just away from the shadows
The red of your scarf catches the light
And draws it down
And those football eyes shine
Unscramble the mysticism of tactics
Each lunge measured
Each trailing leg […]

Monsieur Houllier
That Treble had us dancing
Dortmund, Cardiff, home.

Bootroom Bard for football seasons
Now that’s the job for me
In praise of Bob and Liverpool
Of all things Bill Shankly

A job well Donne the chants declare
For Dalglish rules supreme
A Prince among the t […]

We all got ‘megged by Covid
No more football games from March
All that zoom and online rooms
The future seemed so sparse
 
So, stacked on teams the world it seemed
All quiet and slowed right down
Our he […]

Pantomime villains
Saints and sinners
Football has them all

Be blessed with God-given gifts
Upon that football pitch
You’re forgiven all the more

But should your boots have trace of clay
The l […]

Diego the man
Returns to the
Silent earth

Maradona the footballer
Plays on
Thunderous immortality.

Maradona takes his rest
Heaven’s 11
With George Best.

* * *

I loved you
Even tho others
Said you were
A ‘cheat’
I loved you
For your genius
Wild and unpredictable
Making up then breaking
All the rules
And you were
Who I was, always,
Playing football
On that […]

The genius of Maradona
In those god-given toes
that mane of untamed curls
and the knowing hand
that could not steal the beauty
of that second goal.

Once upon a silent terrace
The trainers in the box forlorn
But football just like love returns
We go again, we dream again for sure

Once upon a silent terrace
The scent of Bovril disappears
But football […]