Football and the Holocaust
THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
In the old days of my youth,
When I used to lie back in the dentist’s chair
Ater a medicinal whiff of gas,
With the drill resonating in my head,
And all manner of contrivances stuck in my mouth,
My mind sometimes used to drift away,
As I tried to escape the pain,
And I used to see all manner of things,
Although I never saw Eddie Hamel
Standing there beside me.
A tall good-looking gentleman
Was Eddie, with sleek black hair
And a number 7 on his back;
A New York Jewish gentleman,
Who just happened to play football,
Patrolling the Ajax right wing,
And sending in his accurate crosses,
In those happy flapper days of the Twenties,
Before the Second World War.
But because Eddie was Jewish,
He went on a sealed train to Birkenau;
Where he shared a bunk with Leon Greenman,
And that’s where they rubbed their backs together,
Sharing warmth on those cold winter nights,
Trying to stay alive for the Final Solution’s selection.
Eddie had been an Ajax first team regular,
A right regular agile winger,
Who could drop his shoulders, feint to the left
And then swerve with his body to the right,
That’s why he was selected,
He was intelligent, elusive, accurate and strong.
But on this nightmare selection day,
Eddie had an abscess in his mouth,
And the SS thought a swollen face
Meant an unfit, incapable worker,
So while Leon went to the right,
Eddie, right behind him,
Was ordered to the left,
And this gentle man,
Described by Leon as “terrifically nice”,
Was despatched to the gas chambers
And the Final Solution.
But we’ll remember you, Eddie,
Especially when any Feyenoord fans abuse the past,
Chanting their holocaust songs
And “We’re going on a Jew hunt”,
Then mimicking the hissing sound of escaping gas
When their team plays Ajax.
Don’t you just love The Beautiful Game?
ONE IN TEN
It’s so easy to forget us,
When remembering the Holocaust,
The wearers of the pink triangle;
But analysed from any angle,
We are the one in ten,
The women and the men,
Who find true love and trust
Within the confines of their own sex.
But we were gassed en masse,
So as to leave no trace
For the master race,
And its fascist bellicosity,
And heterosexuality.
But I held his hand,
And he held mine,
And strange as it might seem,
We recollected our football team,
As we rumbled on to Auschwitz,
Whistling tunes from Lizst,
Until the chamber’s hiss
Took him from me,
But not from my memory.
For he lives on again and then again,
For are we not still, a resilient one in ten?
PORRAJIMOS – THE GREAT DEVOURING
“Porrajimos”
Is what the Gypsies call the Holocaust,
And it came as no surprise
To experienced Gypsy eyes,
“ The Great Devouring”,
For Nazi racial ideology
With its delusory biology,
Had already said the only way
In the bright new day
Where “Tomorrow belongs to me”
In a thousand year Reich,
Where Might is Right
For ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,
Was to stop Gypsies, as they put it,
Breeding:
For re-creation and miscegenation
Was misleading,
To a society based upon racial purity
And doctrinal probity.
So this meant concentration camps
And sterilisation, with the lamp
Of fascist academia acting as a beacon,
For eugenics was the guiding reason,
And the way to get on,
Until petrol replaced the needle,
And the spade, the scalpel,
And gypsies were burned alive,
Like our strong man number five,
A centre half who made no errors,
But now burning in screaming terror;
But Zykon gas is so much cheaper,
Than petrol ditches dug ever deeper,
And so horror itself was soon surpassed,
With 250 Gypsy children gassed –
Buchenwald guinea pigs in 1940,
Another beacon for the Holocaust story.
And while the winter rains
And the chambers’ drains
Choked on the smell of gas,
The death trains danced
To the tune of the Final Solution’s
Timetables.
THE DISABLED
“We’ll use the wheelchairs to make new tanks”
They laughed, “And the callipers
Will make nice new machine guns,
And your skulls will make fine footballs,
And we’ll melt you morons down
For tallow for candles,
That’s the only way you’ll spread any light
From your Untermenschen lives.”
My eye lids closed as tightly
As the gas chamber doors,
And a solitary tear dropped down my cheek,
Catching the last rays of the sun,
As it dropped behind the high barbed wire.
There’s no place in the master race
For those who can’t run fast
Or who move in a different direction.,
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
John Gilbert Ellis
28th November 2024
joe morris
26th November 2024
Denys E. W. Jones
26th November 2024
Gacina Bozidar
26th November 2024
Wynn Wheldon
26th November 2024
joe morris
17th November 2024
Crispin Thomas
17th November 2024
kevin halls
10th November 2024
joe morris
10th November 2024
Clik The Mouse
10th November 2024
Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
27th November 2024 at 5:55 am
‘You’re Supposed To Be At Home’ is an excellent and moving poem Denys.
You start off thinking it’s just about another oft-sung chant, one we personally heard a lot last season throughout our second relegation in a row here at Forest Green(FGR) ! I always love poems where you think they are saying one thing and then they suddenly pull you deeper to somewhere or something else else.
I’m currently helping in a local school for FGR in a voluntary capacity using football to help young students with reading. At an upcoming session we will tackle racism, just like we did in workshops at football schools and grounds when we first started this site 24 years ago. I’m gonna try and weave your poem into a session.
We’ve added it to the Anti- Racism/Kick It Out section under Crispin’s Corner.
Best C
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26th November 2024 at 1:59 pm
Great poem and great to see you back Wyn.
Don’t leave it so long next time my friend!
More please.
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13th September 2024 at 6:14 pm
Welcome to Football Poets Beth
Great evocative poem Beth….
More please !
Haiku always welcome.
Hope we (FGR) get to play you again soon
Best
Crispin
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26th July 2024 at 6:25 pm
Great poem Mike Bartram. Eddie was a legend, affectionately known in Liverpool as, “the first hooligan.” Even the hoolies were well dressed in those days. The amazing thing was he was only 26 when that picture was taken. He’d played for Everton youth team and was well known to the players. He never got arrested. They threw him out and he climbed back in, just in time for Derek Temples winner.
I used the picture of him being tackled to the ground on the front cover of my book, “Once Upon a rhyme in Football.” It’s worth looking on youtube and finding the re-enactment of the Wembley scene. Frank Skinner and Baddiel went around to Eddies home in the 1990’s and acted it out on the green outside. It’s hilarious, especially all the effort they put in to get Eddie sober enough to shoot the scene.
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10th July 2024 at 6:07 pm
Hi Crispin,
I don’t know if you’ve see the picture in social media today…
a picture of a teenage Lionel Messi cradling a baby in Africa as part of a photoshoot…. the family had won a lottery to have their baby pictured with him….
the photographer has just revealed that the baby is actually in fact Lamine Yamal!!!!
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26th May 2024 at 2:30 pm
Hi Denys…
Re Man City:
OK it was 20 years ago but Criag Wilson did write this and a few others on them back in 04/05.
BTW I’m more Forest Green Rover since 2014 (and Chelsea) these days . I drum and am a standing season ticket holder .
Best
Crispin
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29th April 2024 at 2:47 pm
Hi Denys,
Yes Richard Williams you’re a brilliant wordsmith, my friend. When I first saw your football poetry I thought it was the superb Guardian sports and music writer. I once had the honour of sitting next to Richard Williams while at the Independent on the sports desk. He writes about music and sport with immense knowledge and authority. I’ve read a couple of Richard’s books recently. Great writer rather like you Richard Williams the Pompey fan. Congratulations on promotion.
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28th April 2024 at 5:59 pm
Thanks Denys. Yes your replay poem was superb.
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26th April 2024 at 4:46 pm
Nice work, Joe. You were quick off the mark with that! Good one from Richard Williams too I see.
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25th April 2024 at 7:33 pm
Hi Denys,
Thanks mate. I’ll do it now.
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