The day England played Portugal, My daughter, Charlotte, left for Geneva, And that dawn, I watched a skein of ducks Silhouette the widening, reddening sky, While I stood staring, thinking of her in her ‘plane, While I stood staring, stuck in my suburban back garden. But I love my Stroud suburbs, all that Edwardian red […]

“I spy with my little eye, I think, and, so, am I”, That’s what the football manager said, Irresolutely shaking his head, For when his team has internal divisions, Racked and riven by domestic schisms, The manager then blames luck and chance, Rather than a failure of intelligence; The manager rarely blames himself, It’s always […]

I feint. I dive. I evade. I avoid. I bend the rules. But obviously try to keep them. I’m legal. What does ethical mean? Anyway, my agent does it all for me. Responsibility? I provide the circus. You get your own bread.

In Europe it’s penalty shoot out and sudden death, And the metaphors of sport grip A continent. But in the Gaza Strip A 9 year old Palestinian was listening to the ref Yesterday, playing football in the Rafah refugee camp, When he was killed in a tank attack. Omar Zara’an was playing innocent football Within […]

It’s an unusual test To play a team Whose names all end in s, But what an oddity, And extra time oddysey, To play a goalie, One z short of his nationality; But consonant with incongruity, I suppose. But the Roman knows The power of the Cech book. (But midst all those saves, Was there […]