Football Poets

Oceans open out through the canals
Of my heart and trace lives
Down tributaries where the past
Ebbs and flows with the rhythm
Of memories
Football
Like the sea
Eternal motion pulse of life
Football
Lapping at […]

The Red shirts packed with magic
And they grew miracles for feet
The angels gave them wings to fly
Through wind and rain and sleet

The Kop would roar the names with pride
And songs composed we’d sing
And worship […]

His boots are made for scoring
And that’s just what they’ll do
But there’s nowt worse than a Kop End goal
From a manc and former blue….

Johnny Rhythm
Should have played at
Anfield not Strawberry Field
No chance of ’em closing
The Shankly Gates.

In Burnley
You play football
Wearing flippers
Not boots
In Burnley
Even the fish
In the Irwell complain
It’s too wet!

I kept saying that the game at Turf Moor
Would be called off
I know these east lancs rains too well
And anyway
When the Reds arrived
They’d left their snorkels
On the coach!

In life we have goals
That we set as our targets
For achievment those little mementos
Of our victories against the injustices
And disappointments in life
And every now and then
One of our goals hits the back of […]

Jermaine Defoe cut through the defences
Emile Heskey ploughed through the defences
Thierry Henry danced through the defences.

Grand Liverpool teams the great man built
“Just like bloody Napoleon” me arl fella said
In nineteen sixty five we slayed Inter Milan
“Tell us again” I’d beg of me Dad

I was only a baby just starting to […]

In the image of the father
The son is child to the man
And for once philosophy and nature
Between the capricious will of goalposts
Are Right Right Right!

Dear God
Turn me into
Thierry Henry
With skills oh so silky
Like him I would be
Let me weave football magic
That leaves all behind
Eating dust chasing shadows
Then for Liverpool sign!

Bobby Zamora
Can’t stop scoring goals
Bobby Zamora
He plays with rhythm and Soul
Bobby Zamora made for the Beautiful Game
Bobby Zamora
With his Brazilian sounding name!

In my dreams
I have run with Kennedy, Cally, Souness, McDermott
My red shirt blazing a brilliant burning light
Unravelling the strange unearthly beauty of football
Set free

In my dreams
I have raced down the […]

On the songs from The Kop
On the tales from The Jungle
On the North Bank of Highbury
I write your name

On the steps of the Maracana
On the door of The Nou Camp
On the roof of The Bernebeu
I write your name

On […]

I saw Dalglish come to life
And turn spinning tops dizzy
I saw Bobby Moore shine
And I dreamed an angel silver and gold
I saw Smithy rise up like a thrashing salmon
And hold the world in the palm of his boots
I […]

When I was at secondary school all those years ago
In English I was taught Keats’ “Ode To A Grecian Urn”
And not one single word other than those in the title did I retain
But Rushie’s goals the style tec […]

The magician di Stefano
White arrow silver string
From the burning bow
That is the Madrilenos
And Gento his flamboyant colours
Brave as Picasso and passionate as Lorca
Kopa came out from the mines a miracle made […]

The white and the gold
The kings and the kings to be
Stepping onto the technicolour stage
To unharness the meticulous
And the miraculous
The supreme attacker
Like a surging meteor
Toward the peerless defender
Who […]

The ghosts of faces
In boots and laces
Shadows lark
In empty parks
PS2 the virtual terrace
Football played
With hands not feet.

Once more Santa Garcia
Bright jewel
Lighting up the drab
January afternoon
The tinsel of Christmas
Faded and worn
As the new year
Shakes itself free of the
Old apathy yet to begin
The rattle of charity
Fighting […]