POETS X1
POETS X1
In goal, I would place Caedmon,
For if any Viking made a raid upon
His goal with a shoal of longboats,
He would repel them with Anglo-Saxon wit
And make them flit.
At full back, Percy Bysshe Shelley could welly
The ball past Castlereagh and well away
From danger too,
And so prevent another Peterloo.
Chaucer will be our enforcer
At centre back,
And many a hack
Will hail
His tale
Of Gillingham.
Shakespeare will fake fear
Alongside him; his grim
Visage will taunt the enemy
With the epitome
Of tragedy;
But ‘tis comedy
Of dissimulation
And confabulation:
All the world’s a stage
And as a player,
Will’s a slayer,
He is indefatigable
In his search for the ball,
And will use his quill
For good or ill
To keep the score,
Win, lose or draw,
For John Keats cheats
With addition,
And e’en perdition
Does not deter him
From his whim
To Fanny Brown around in midfield.
The referee of this jamboree
Is Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Who has a cranial hole which
Confuses his memory.
The laudanum
Plays harum scarum
With his summary
Of the score
And what’s more,
Edmund Spenser
Is even denser
As a referee’s assistant;
He’s never equidistant
From the play,
Instead, he’s away
With the Faeries and Queens,
Although
Arthur Rimbaud
At six
Will play tricks,
Making a rainbow
From A E I U O,
This spectrum-synaethesia
Ends Coleridge’s amnesia
To such a paradoxical degree
That he forgets he’s the referee
And joins in on our side,
Running far and running wide,
Our new number 7
From Xanadu’s immeasureless heaven,
Skinning Kevin Horlock
‘Til disturbed by a visitor from Porlock.
Inside right will have to be John Clare
Who never plays dirty but only plays fair
And whose surreptitious transfer to Fulham
Will keep the asylum
At bay so each day
John can have a rebirth
Just like William Wordsworth,
A lone striker at 9
Leading the line
Far from midfield’s madding crowd
He wanders lonely as a cloud
But every now and again
Just now and just then
He’ll get the gen from Ben
Johnson. Sort of News from 10,
For the first Poet Laureate
On Poesy’s winged chariot
Will weave magic and weft
As our inside left
And when we win our cup ties
He’ll drink to us only with his eyes
“Drink to me only with thine eyes” –
What a curious notion is this,
Drinking your eyes without glasses,
Yet making a spectacle of yourself.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
Ocular imbibing solely,
Swallowing your pupil and cornea wholly,
Nothing else, no other liquid,
Just your eyes clear and limpid,
With your tear-ducts
Making it a lachrymatory suicidal experience.
Now, would you pull them out one by one,
And force them down with your finger and thumb,
Or serpent-like, twist and lengthen your tongue,
But imagine,
The first one would make you scream in horror and pain,
But that’s only the hors d’oeuvre,
You’ve got to do it again,
Drink to me with thine eyes only?
Let’s face it, that would kill you stone dead,
If you like me that much,
Buy me a Guinness instead,
You’d have to spend money,
That much we’re knowing,
But at least then you be able to see where you’re going,
So, drink to me only with thine eyes?
I don’t wish to be cruel and unkind,
I know that love is supposed to be blind,
But what if this short-sighted amatory act
Left your partner totally untouched, in fact,
By Cupid,
Let’s face it,
You’d look really stupid.
Now, apologies for that digression,
We’ve still to choose number X1,
We need a sage, a prof, a don,
Who else could there be, but our Big Ron,
A TV pundit, now a little fatter,
But who can forget Early Doors and The Little Ratter?
Such words he’s coined and so he’s joined our team,
Big Ron of all the TV crew, you are the Christmas cream,
He’s on the ball,
He’ll hear our call,
So come on Ron, set out your stall,
So come on Ron, set out your stall,
With the bard and you, we’ll confuse them all.
About This Site
Welcome to Football Poets -- a club for all football poets, lovers of football and lovers of (alternative) poetry. Discover poets in every league from respected internationals at the top of their game to young hopefuls in the school playground.
Publish your football poems here and then discuss them with your team mates and fans. We're archived by The British Library, so your masterpieces are in the safe hands of a world-class keeper. What a result!
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Latest Poems
Gacina Bozidar
3rd February 2023
Gacina Bozidar
3rd February 2023
joe morris
3rd February 2023
Stuart Butler
2nd February 2023
Denys E. W. Jones
30th January 2023
joe morris
29th January 2023
Crispin Thomas
25th January 2023
joe morris
23rd January 2023
Denys E. W. Jones
23rd January 2023
joe morris
14th January 2023
Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
5th December 2022 at 8:11 pm
Stuart, you are not alone, in your dichotomy of doubt
but without dissention
you stand alone
in hogging our attention!
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16th November 2022 at 11:04 am
[Football on soiled turf]
This is a wonderful phrase which I shall be using from now on!
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15th November 2022 at 3:54 pm
Well said Crispin. One of the reasons for The Ball 2022/23 is exactly this – that FIFA need to know. The Ball is essentially a petition to FIFA to honour their commitments to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. They signed up; they should act. The Qatar tournament takes the World Cup in the opposite direction to that commitment. And 2026 looks like it’ll be even worse.
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8th November 2022 at 2:06 pm
Hi Guys
Re ‘Lets Boycott Qatar ‘ poem
You probably hate me banging on..and problably know (like me) that my/your not watching the World Cup in Qatar will make no difference.
Of course it won’t. That’s not the point.
OK someone might possibly eventually publish a minimal drop in terrestrial TV viewer numbers, but I fear that is unlikely.
But please above all, do go on writing poems about the World Cup, as/you we have always done. I hate to think a poem or two of mine might l make you feel bad about comenting on a game or country …or that I’ve put you all off about wanting to contribute.
So we’d love to hear from you and read your thoughts and observations, as ever on what’s going on.
Some of us have been here since Football Poets website birth/inception for the Euros 2000 ….
All my best wishes
Crispin
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18th October 2022 at 10:06 am
Shoot! (Something we’ve also been screaming in vain at our team all season !)
Great memories Joe . Before Shoot, it was Roy of the Rovers comic too, dropping through my letterbox.
Anxiously waiting each week to see if they survived in the mexcian jungle after an ambush..or a pre-season earthquake!
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3rd October 2022 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for the kind words Sharon. Yes, it was a shame with Billy Shako, but with five subs now being allowed, he might yet make it off the bench. Even if it’s just a cameo to close out a poem.
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2nd October 2022 at 1:49 pm
John, your new book is an absolute delight and more please. It’s a shame ‘Swapping Shirts With Shakespeare’ never made it off the bench, but quality football poets light up the writing fields like Roman candles. Go well.
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4th September 2022 at 12:42 pm
Great memories Greg. Took me right back.
Today I stand on a small terrace in the hills where I live watching Forest Green Rovers in L1, and keep up with Chelsea on highlights. It’s a far cry and a world away from those times when I lived as a child within walking distance of ‘The Bridge’ – just off the Ifield Road, which led to Fulham Road. The Blues were rubbish for so long, but we loved them and somehow we stayed in the old First Division for so many seasons. And of course we got to see Greavesie at his impudent best, scoring goals for fun. Mad unpredictable games where we’d score 4 and let in five.
The looming floodlights in the dark and mist on magic night games. The big games when the ground heaved.
I don’t think we ever realized how magical and incredible it was back then. The atmosphere and arriving there so early – like you said.. just to make sure you got in. Back when Bovril, tea and cake and roasted peanuts for sixpence a back were just about all on offer.
Good times.
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4th September 2022 at 12:37 pm
see above
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18th August 2022 at 10:20 am
To put it politely!
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