Football Poets

Football is flesh and blood
love and lies and truth
betrayal sadness joy and faith
wit wisdom and idiocy of
the indelible comradeship
the principles and disciplines
the traps tropes and temptations
of a […]

When I am an old woman, I am going to wear purple
In the name of rock and roll God bless my rebel soul
I will learn to play guitar, and who cares if I’m out of tune

Because I’m in step not out of time, and […]

In goal there’s Nicko as steady as stone
Swapped blue for white and found a new home
Right back is Yatesy a machine scoring goals
In the Cup he was magic St Yates Day now known!

From the youth ranks M […]

Football poems in muddy boots
Those heroic couplets with chalk down the verbs
Them epics that flew off the wings of metaphors
Roared on by the mythic terrace
In boss ghazals
Syllables for goalposts
iambs to […]

As soon as you’re born you’ve chosen your club
And you go with your Dad meet your mates at the pub
And you give it your heart and your soul and your love
Working class football is something to be
Agents l […]

Ali Turganbekov, from Kazakhstan
This young boy
With his beautiful shining glorious smile
Won the Super Cup last night
And proves that however we walk
Wherever the path leads
Whatever the obstacles
No […]

The poetry in motion
Upon a football pitch
Whence a Dalglish angles punctuates
The essential wisdom
And simplicity of a game
Thus spake Shankly, Busby, Stein
Scottish Steel hewn from the
Collective nouns […]

In vast shipwrecks of seasons dreams
Amidst the clack of fans who scorn
The overpriced and misplaced signs
When boots of better days were born
Our sense of joy with fleeting runs
Those hazy mazy wingers […]

Football loves its trinities
And like the Holy Ghost
Always feels more at home
When the other two are close

Hansen, Souness and Dalglish
Or the 3 Jocks as they’re known
Leaped right over Hadrian’s Wal […]

Football teaches us boss lessons about love

especially the heartbreak

how emotions rule over flags raised

and inside the head is screaming “You must’ve seen that!”

and of course the offside rules never […]

All around the country
There is a gathering pulse-beat, a small yet vital sign of life
The first heads of the green shoots beginning to push up and out into the light
New kits on the block
Relegation battles […]

When I was in high school all those years ago
In English I was taught Keats’ “Ode To A Grecian Urn”
And whilst I loved this bright star’s resilient rebellion
Not one single word other than those in the title d […]

Oh how well orchestrated the redemption
Playing cards with God
No sleight of hand needed
When the boots were blessed
With such divine miracles
6 lions not 3 left stranded bewildered
Some say bewitched and […]