Football Poets

According to United, Real has no cause to whine.
Apparently, to transfer players, someone has to sign.
It’s not that hard. No Scotland Yard required to solve this crime.
The keepers were both injured. Can’t we add […]

Bob-a-man! Bob-a-man!
Put your money in!
Tuck your trousers into socks
and bare your boots to win!

Bob-a-man! Bob-a-man!
Common’s cinder pitch.
Worked all day. It’s time to play.
One goal and you’ll be […]

A hot summer night. Couldn’t find the net
I’ve gotta find a winner yet
Hazard’s (not) hurt. The flame is fed.
Courtois’ out. Was shown straight red

Doctor Doctor, gimme the news I got a
Bad case of Chelsea Blues […]

I’ll give you ten million for Thomas.
He bagged twenty-seven* last year.
That was one more than Aguero.
He’s six-fifty plus his career.

Shearer had only two-sixty.
Henry? One seventy-five.
Will anyone ever touch […]

The sweetest ball I ever struck
jumped up (a divot – bit of luck),
and flew, topspin, o’er keeper’s head.
“Do it again,” the Scotsman said.

The sweetest girls I’ve ever known,
are front of mind when I’m […]

Bleary-eyed. Up late. Pyjama flannels.
Surfing, searching for thirty-two panels.
All I seem to find are cycle crashes,
tennis tantrums, Greek debts, “Cops”, “Kardashians”…
Soon (I hope), I must run out of […]

We don’t need sophistication.
We don’t need no ball control.
No charts or chalkboards in the classroom.
Teachers, leave them kids alone.
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another loss in […]

It’s Stroud, tomorrow, with you,
with something borrowed and blue.
Cast off this crowd and then
catch me a cloud bound for
Stroud, tomorrow, with you.

When we hit our stride
we’ll head to Merseyside
with the wind […]

Vladimir invades Ukraine.
Americans plot plays for pain.
Make his Russian blood to boil.
Tell Saudis: “Flood the world. Free oil.”
This did not work as predicted.
Torture. Sporture. Swiss-inflicted.
FIFA meetings […]

By now we’re all immersed,
in headlines: competitions cursed
by deals of men. The bubble’s burst.
They sold our Game. The Ball’s coerced.

But, …

. . . if these fortnights, interspersed
with goals and h […]

The sun has come out.
Supporters shed coats
and wear jerseys alone on matchday.
The fiercest attacking
is manager-sacking.
It’s Football, in England, in May.

If you need a reason
to watch, it’s next season.
The […]

There I was: Albaicin.
Friend’s son playing team in green.
Granada boys. They looked like pros.
You had to see it. Who’d suppose
that pros could be just four feet tall?
Age eight and nine? A size four ball?
In […]

The afterglow. Supporters warm,
while Pundits preach of new found form,
but Statisticians tend to lean
toward regression to the mean.
So, Tuesday, at the Etihad,
Sir Galton says, ‘It could be bad.
This Messi […]

In Spain, the televisions
show the matches from on high,
as if your sofa were the cheapest
seat that you could buy.
There could be one advantage
to this foreign field transmission:
a child may watch a […]

When I manage in the day,
the boys devised a kick-off play,
a yard ahead, then five behind,
then lofted skyward down the line.
You see, we had this kid named Khoi
(if e’er there was a speedy boy . . . ),
could […]

I wish I had an editor,
could make my free kick bend
like Crispin’s Crew fixes my posts
when, too soon, I hit ‘send’.
She’d use a comma to slow down
a breakout on the wing,
and periods, when facing shots,
to take […]

A hundred years ago,
at ten o’clock, or so,
a German waved his arms,
walked into ‘no man’s land.’
The English held their fire
(‘twould draw the Generals’ ire).
I guess you’d have to have been
there to […]

If I could go back to when I was just seven,
I know I’d play football again.
Time seemed to stand still and my life seemed like heaven
before we grew up to be men,
back when my only goals were the ones between […]

Crispin Thomas:
Chelsea man,
Football Poet,
One-man-band,
helping us
to understand
the Game we love
is much more grand
than money,
television, and
is best when played
on grass, or sand,
impromptu, ref-less,
on […]

A striker’s like a poet;
(s)he’ll* use the slightest touch,
he’ll thigh, or chest, or toe it,
whisper, do, with little, much.
He’s not the midfield playwright.
He is no defender hack,
nor critic-keeper, each […]