Football Poets

It told me that kopite Phil Downey had sadly passed away
And I took some time to take this in, then emotion carried me effortlessly back through memories,
Flying through decades of divorce and death and birth […]

Lily strikes a pose
Not the women’s or men’s game
Just football, for all.

Long after the songs have been sung
And the red flares that flooded the sky have slowly dispersed
The billowing flags of poetry and sardonic Scouse wit folded for memories
The football streets of Liverpool […]

Klopp’s name writ home with
Paisley Fagan Benitez
The Fab Four Walk On.

I wasn’t at Anfield last night
I was at home in Appin
Glued to the radio, hoping always hoping
In our little corner of Scousedom here in Argyll
And Klopp spot on when he spoke of this Liverpool […]

When football creates
Her miraculous comebacks
Liverpool FC.

McNeill leads the Lions
Di Steviano arrives
Upon heaven’s park.

Farewell to Cesar
Celtic Man Lisbon Lion
King of the Jungle.

On this day recall
Justice never walks alone
96 reasons why.

“The Anfield Iron”
I remember like yesterday
When you rose up like a Scouse salmon
To claim the crown in Rome
30, 000 Kopites shook their heads
With disbelief and then took off
For the moon
But me and Dad […]

There’s a dream that I left back in childhood
In the overgrown grass down a lane

On a park named my very own Anfield
A place where the child used to play

Where the days stretched out long in the s […]

These groaning bones of life
With chill upon this winter earth
In search of little solstice
And a spruce of football mirth

Keep us from the devil
And his tackling for the soul
For there’s glory in t […]

In a certain light
My son looks like the grand-father he never knew
My son, all grown up,
A Burnley born boy with Scouse blood coursing through his veins
But most of all in his sardonic sense of humour
His […]

I am ageing
Thus begins the slow decline, the hint of the light darkening,
Gradually, sometimes gently,
I deny it sometimes
When I listen to Beatles Bowie and Bolan
And the heady scent of rebellion shimmers […]

Banks of England
What athletic dignity
Poured through each finger
And ripped through the sky
The Arc of Triumph
The athletic body pushed through
Impossible angles
And as the man wheeled away
Body flexed in […]

With their legs shot to pieces
And turning to stone
They picked up our dreams
Now they won’t walk alone
From the terrace our passion
Burst forth from each heart
And it fired up our warriors
On that A […]