Football Poets

Senna conducts
Villa the virtuoso violin
Fabregas sublimely plays
Torres one single note of perfection.

Now that’s the job for me
In praise of Bob and Liverpool
Of all things Shankly

A job well Donne the chants declare
For Dalglish rules supreme
A Prince among the terrace Kop
The people and their King

The boots […]

The season pitters down to a handful of games
A pocketful of passes
A collection of corners
A gaggle of goals
Points lost and won
Totting up totals and
Working out whether
You, like Arnie, will be back
Daft […]

Paul Scholes
Would grace any side
That much is certain
And against Barca
His 100th European game
How fitting the Nou Camp scribes
Should choose his name
To grace headlines
Not for diving cheating or prancing
But […]

He smiles
Like a gravedigger with a new shovel
Is he about to bury Liverpool
And exorcise the ghost of Jose.

If only JAR had used his head

And practised with his right foot

We would have a leg

To stand on…

Are we now left facing

A Bridge too far…

Like Blek le Rat
Ronaldo slips through walls
Beckham bent ’em
Roberto Carlos went round ’em
And Shearer’s cannons tore ’em down
From Berlin to Bejing
From Gaza to Gazza
Walls are for artists
Banks and Banksy […]

Sometimes Football transcends its tribalism
‘Breaks its rusty cage’ and calls to its soul
Whatever the colours, scarves, songs
In a gesture that remembers the fallen
Not as rivals but friends, sisters, brothers
In Football.

Seems so easy to type that word
A selection of letters in black print
And yet 19 years on from the first time
I wrote Hillsborough
There remains a space
Because the word Justice
Is still missing.

This Athletico youth
Shapes dreams and hopes
In a flurry of goals and kisses blown
Like clouds and storms that cease
In the promise of a false dawn
Yet the record stands
First season stats suggest
Substance and […]

It must be painful and ever so galling
For a gaffa of Wenger’s true calling
Champions League dreams still stalling
Postmatch he is simply appalling
Excuses Excuses he’s trawling
The walls of the pressroom he’s […]

The clock is ticking
Will ’89 be avenged
Kop will see, shortly.

“Remove the bias from your own eye
And then you may well see the bias in mine”
Arsene sponsored by specsaver
I think not
For it’s all so clear
He’s rattled
Scrapping for excuses
Blaming an ‘uneven playing […]

The ‘penalties’ that were not given
Misplaced tackles halting flare
Offside goals and such decisions
Wenger sees them mark my words
Oh woe is Arsenal 20 passess
Cross the park and Theo flies
Henry’s gone his ghost […]

Broken hearted by many a result
Mis-timed tackle
Mis-placed pass

Full hearted display
Blood and thunder
Boots and glory, they say

Feint hearted didn’t turn up
Turned back and let the oppo’s strikers
Fill their […]

Goodbye Robbie Fowler
Farewell Ian Rush
So long Michael Owen
We loved you once, enough

Goodbye Kevin Keegan
Sir Roger leave your crown
There’s a new kid scoring goals for fun
A king to please the crowd

Torres […]

A new gold angel
A true kop idol

Rushie’s shirt
And Robbie’s too

Those miracles lead to heaven son
Or Moscow, we will see.

Shankly making the people happy
Mooro pristine in his tackles and kit
Banks of England safest pair of hands
Chippy Brady darting over the pitch
Adams as stoical as the house made of bricks
Football to me

Paisley […]

Is a thing of beauty
A goalden boot glory bound
A gasp of breath from Moses
Whilst God watching with the Babes
Rubs His eyes in disbelief.

It is said that football supporters
Grow to resemble their clubs
But what if your club has seen
Better days distant glories
Is there still a chance to dream
To put on the slap
Dust down the stadium
Repair the […]