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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Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
19th March 2024 at 8:00 am
Hi Crispin. Chris Sutton on the radio has gone for a Chelsea v Coventry final. As we know anything can happen in the Cup, and I reckon we can go to the final.
We’re still in with a chance of the play offs too, so lots to go for.
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19th March 2024 at 7:41 am
Hey Kev
Let the masses drool over their odds on City v Unted Final, but who knows how pressure can hit.
Cov and Chels will be rightly labelled as having no chance..but hey …stranger things have happened..
so Chelsea v Coventry…that’s the Final for us!
Best
C
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29th January 2024 at 10:03 pm
Hi Crispin,
How are you doing mate? Yes, you’re probably right but hey football is all about emotion and passion and I just love writing about the game. I try to keep my poetry to a reasonable length but there’s so much to write about the game and its literature just lends itself naturally to poetry. Sometimes I just get completely carried and I do apologise for the length of my poetry but it’s a great thrill to be associated with Football Poets.
Cheers mate
Joe
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10th January 2024 at 7:52 pm
You’re right of course Joe but…..it’s actually more of a big welcome break for everyone who is not into Premier League ..I’m talking fans of EFL National League and below…..
Btw …is this actually your longest poem ever !?
Best
Crispin
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8th January 2024 at 4:45 pm
Thanks!
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8th January 2024 at 10:42 am
There’s something so evocative and nostalgic for football fans the world over, in ‘revisiting’ old lost grounds.
Occasionally some remnants remain, with perhaps part of a wall or part or a stand or thre shape of a terrace, but often they are only still there in faded images and in our heads..
Great stuff Graham
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4th January 2024 at 10:13 am
A great idea and well executed. Thanks Graham.
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19th November 2023 at 1:45 pm
Thanks Gacina, glad you liked it, and I have just posted a new one about our points deduction…
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7th November 2023 at 6:34 pm
Today B.B.C post on F.B was titled:Premier League reduced to 18 clubs? I really think it may be interesting to see if this would be Everton’s nightmare and this poem is well suited for this concern.If there would be more difficult battle to stay if there were 18 teams.Great poem and somehow true.
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6th November 2023 at 4:43 pm
Ashington FC have launched a £50,000 Crowdfunder appeal to meet the increased costs of winning promotion last season, to pay for urgent stadium improvements, travel costs and equipment
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