Football Poets

It’s like coming home
Opening the fixture list
Checking who we play first
Then looking when we play them blue noses
The hopes and dreams new season bring
Ignite my soul as I count down to that first g […]

John Lennon
He wore a red and white scarf
But did not play much football
And when he raced across Strawberry Fields
He ghosted between the spaces of childhood
Slipped unnoticed behind the gaps
Where nothing […]

How much money do you really need
Is it market forces or just plain greed
How many Ferraris in the drive
The constant snort of I ME MINE

When will your pot of sporting gold
Manifest in terms of stay or […]

There’s a war in Yemen
But does anybody care
There’s a war in Yemen
Near a million disappeared

Alan Shearer makes his comments
Ukraine’s plight has left him shocked
But he sings a different toon
For […]

We are romantic about football
Eulogising our heroes
Those chivalrous gallant knights of the pitch
But when the smoke of love disperses
And we look and see
Those football boots of clay
Caked in the mud […]

Kelleher steps up
Alisson sits on the bench
The Cup’s in safe hands.

“Guess who’s been on Match of The Day?”
“You have in yer big shorts!”
‘Anarchy in Timperley’ the soundtrack of
My teenage years
Frank and his fantastic shopping trolley
The genius of a paper Mache […]

Your eyes shine
Like Mané through
Your lips as red
As Gerrard’s boots
This Ring of Fire Allez Les Rouges
My Kenny Dalglish my Ian Rush
You trap my dreams
Nutmeg my soul
You’re Shankly’s words […]

On the outside of football boots
We recognise branding and logos
And crave those stripes or swoops

We believe that by wearing these artefacts
Of rubber and plastic
Our feet will be transformed
And we […]

Sculpture is the art of stripping away
What does not need to be there
Cutting away what is not necessary
Idols
Addictions
Compulsions

So that we see the beauty
That was always there, hidden within […]

Like Michelangelo’s David
We are entrapped in stone
Waiting to be freed
To set foot upon those playing fields
Unfettered
Childlike

Just a ball and a patch of green grass
“Football’s such a simpl […]

I wonder if these people
exit the stage before the last act
leave the cinema before the final scene
start sentences that are left wordless in the air
turn off the road before reaching the destination
open a […]

THE PRESENT
These old bones
Rattling tackling moaning groaning
Inch invisibly
Along the inevitable road

THE PAST
Kennedy, McDermott, Keegan
The Kings of Rome
Bob’s ghost
Those Durham vowels […]

No doubt that Bill
Would eager thrill
To the fire of Salah’s fame
But I think like me
He would yearn unapologetically
For the game
From whence he came.

Rock & Roll & Football
Two halves that make one whole
The terrace throng we sing along
God bless this mighty soul

The Game is nowt without the fans
That pulsing swaying roar
Of songs & chants the shards […]

It’s just a game
Not life and death
We know this old refrain,
A leather ball
A muddy pitch
And childhood, once again.