Football Poets

Oxford City 1 – Chesterfield 2

Tuesday night football, but it feels like you’re cheating
when the air in front of your face doesn’t fog up, just breathing.
But there we were, a balmy 18 degrees,
sky blushing pink over the JR,
six hundred Spireites busting the roof off the shed,
and almost fourteen-hundred in total at the RAW, someone said.
Two losses on the bounce and up against promotion favourites…
So it’s a burger and chips and a catch-up on the tarmac,
then the whistle blows and off we go and Tuesday nights are back.
“Come on City!” someone shouts hopefully…
The ball pings around; long balls get smothered and punted back;
a beautiful take from Canice stops an attack and we all clap…
and then ten minutes in we suddenly start to think:
hang on a tick – we’re in this…
Form’s good; quick on the break; passing play and the boys are looking strong;
and though Chesterfield are there in full-throated song
you sense by the half hour mark they’re worried something’s wrong.
Nil-Nil at forty-three minutes, fans sneak off to beat the rush for the bar,
and the conversations are the same:
“Tell you what, mate, we’re in this game!”
“Three points incoming!” and “We’re only gonna win it!”
But then someone comes through with:
“Conceded from a blimmin’ corner – last minute.”

Ah, b******s.

That spices things up, as The 1882 splits into it’s usual mix
of resigned tutters, aged nutters and optimists
(plus one or two who just came for the craic and a beer).
Drinks drained, fans merge back into the City crowd as play gets underway…
and Marsh Lane finds its voice again, as the boys come out in full display,
pushing hard, quick to counter… and then maybe it’s a bit of luck
but Parker’s through and into the net
with a side footed strike the ball get’s tucked,
to the sound of whoops and hoots and cheers and hoarding boards thumping
and the Hoops are bouncing and everyone knows we’re seeing something…
And we are – a beautiful half hour reminder of who we are,
and but for another inch stretched for a toe-poke in,
or a more solid forehead on the end of an Ashby cross, who knows…?
But then comes the hammer blow as Will Grigg shows
he’s still on fire,
at eighty-eight minutes,
and the Shed End erupts
so close to the wire,
and crestfallen Hoops watch the minutes dwindle down
to chalk another loss…

But we all saw that glimmer, and twitter’s already pinging
with Chesterfield fans, magnanimous in winning,
saying: you deserve to be here.
And you know what, if a draw might have felt like a win,
a loss played like this feels at least a draw, at three games in,
building into our own with forty three still left to play…
and there does seem something just a little more relaxed
about the way that Brian tips his cap, and says: we go again at Halifax.

#rowanthepoem

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Oxford City 0 – Rochdale 1

So, Rochdale at home, and there’s a lot to unpack,
(a tough one today, but I think we missed Zac…)

we kept a good shape, pretty strong at the back,
(but, still, we were definitely missing Zac…),

we moved it about well, but shy in attack,
(cos, you know… like I said, we were missing Zac…)

and when caught on the break, just a little bit slack,
(but then, maybe not, if we’d only had Zac…)

in midfield it feels like there’s something we lack,
(yes… plays like a daemon, calls himself Zac?)

and we know, from the fans, that we’re gonna get flak.
(No, we do understand… but please: get well soon, Zac!)

#rowanthepoem

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stinger

a painful defeat
is like a heat-
seeking-missile
it follows you
it tracks you
it locks on….

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