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Poems tagged ‘Football’

Happy 100th birthday Wembley

joe morris

Saturday, April 29th, 2023

It was the place
Our second home in
Suburbia
Or that grandiose
Home in the country
Unspoilt by time
Wembley Stadium
100 years old
You don’t look a day
Over 21,
As youthful as the first
Buds of summer
Pink and cherry blossom
On its hallowed acres
Venerable as the timeless
Turnstiles, the ageless
Grass, cross bars
And posts glowing
In the rudest health
Everything in hale
And hearty
Robustness, strength
Of character of every
Iconic moment
Bobby Moore’s 1966
World Cup hurrah
Interminable FA Cup Finals
Spiced and garnished
With salad days
Parsley, sage, rosemary
And thyme
Stanley Matthews
Breathtaking and baggy shorts
1953, Wembley drinks
In the yeast and barley
Of FA Cup winning glory
A port or brandy
To toast Blackpool’s
Golden Mile of
Heroic splendour
Then Sunderland and Bob Stokoe
Racing after the last bus
Beige coat and natty hat
The essential embroidery
Of Wembley’s stitchwork
Sunderland, outside the top flight
But revitalised on a late sprint
And then there was speedway
In days of yore
Unlikely but true
Motor biking to their
Hearts content
Screeching around sharp
Turns
Oh how Wembley thrilled
To its vastly versatile
Athletes
Then there was rugby league
Greyhounds with the electrifying
Pace of centre forwards or props
And tragically Evil Kneivel
Motor biking unashamedly brave
Once dicing with death
Over processions of London buses
Flying over endless
Double Deckers, roaring towards
Bravado, bravura and
Just fearless and regardless
No regard for health and safety
Wembley 1OO years old
Century maker, centenarian
Enjoy your day and year in the
Sparkling sunlight over
Centuries, delicious pages
Of more stories served
With the sweetness of our lives
Fables and myths
That will always live in eternity
Happy 100th birthday Wembley.

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Oh Wrexham.

joe morris

Sunday, April 23rd, 2023

Wrexham, Wrexham
Hollywood, Hollywood,
In the same sentence
Roll the cameras
Welcome back to
Glitz and glamour
Ryan Reynolds
Turn Wrexham
Into a movie blockbuster
A global franchise
Popcorn all around
Film premiere
Wrexham, Wrexham
Give that team an
Oscar
Overnight sensation

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Patrick Vieira- Palace in disarray

joe morris

Friday, March 17th, 2023

Yes folks it’s that time again
The sack race, unfair dismissal
Your only conclusion
Since Patrick Vieira was our
Honourable friend
Admirably gifted
Hugely intelligent
What more could he have
Done at the Palace?
Now plunged into sorrow and remorse
The Selhurst Park monarchy
Overthrown by restless souls
Who couldn’t wait to give
Vieira his marching orders
Sadly just a victim of circumstances
When the Palace secretaries may have
Been ever so hasty
And yet who would be
A Premier League manager?
Although trapped in
The lower chambers of
The top flight
Vieira offered
The French resistance
In South London back streets
Where the Selhurst Park devotees
Sung their stirring ditties
But Gallic flair and swagger
Was never enough for the
Grumbling, disgruntled board
They wanted the finest boulangerie
And patisserie, breads and cakes
Of the highest quality
Appetites for more goals
A colourful cornucopia of three
Points at once now
In repetition
Conveyor belts of vital goals
Immediate success, huge trucks
And lorry loads of victories
Sadly it was not be for the
Gentlemanly Gunner
A portrait of red Arsenal elegance
But now rejected and snubbed
By the Palace hierarchy
A knighthood is out of the question
And nothing in the way
Of mention in New Year’s honours list
But the Frenchman will preside
Over football’s Versailles once again
A veritable beacon of light
Amid the frantic mayhem
Of the Champs Elysses
Indeed a connoisseur of the arts
Vieira football’s Matisse
Will once again be the main
Exhibit in the halls of glory
The brushes of artistry
His forte always
Patrick Vieira
Will lead again
Amid the Premier League
Marble splendour
Of Highbury’s highs
And Emirates now

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All is forgiven

joe morris

Monday, March 13th, 2023

Ah, all is forgiven
In Beeb towers
Gary Lineker, free
Liberated by those
Who refused to understand
Leicester’s favourite son
Released, no longer
Captive in a language
Twisted by those who
Believed words were enough
Properly structured
But then lost in
The translation
Move forward
Forgotten and forgiven

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Silence is Match of the Day

joe morris

Friday, March 10th, 2023

Oh Aunty Beeb
What a kerfuffle and rumpus
Silence falls across
TV’s football landscape
The rocks, boulders and valleys
Now barring the way
For Messrs Lineker, Wright
And Shearer
Football’s militant trade unionists
Digging their heels on
Matters of principle
Match of the Day with
Empty chairs and voices
Football and politics
It’s a delicate balancing act
Gary, Ian, and Alan
Boycotting a Saturday night
National treasure
Surely sacrilege but then
The nation finds itself
Torn between yet more
Conflicting feelings
In the heat of the moment
Migrants fleeing persecution
1930s language and rhetoric
From agonised and traumatised times
Exploding onto heated breakfast tables
Then dominating Friday evening
Saloon bar chit chat
Should Gary stick to VAR controversies
Endorsing the press and commending
The banks of defensive back fours
And his stock in trade
When Leicester, then Spurs and Everton
And famously Barcelona
Invested in goal- scoring nectar
Then Wrighty, firstly at the gates of
The Palace and then the purple seasons
At Highbury, a Gunner blasting brilliance
And Alan, Alan Shearer
In the Geordie furnaces
Newcastle proud and bold
Raise an ale to the St James Park legend
So Match of the Day
Will discover a sponsored twenty minutes of quiet
Moments of stunned disbelief
Football observing monastic orders
Tomorrow monks will creep through
The shocked corridors of the BBC
A haunted football castle
Former footballers exercising
The hands of democracy
Lone voices will be heard
Match of the Day reduced
To awkward murmurings over
Earnest beer and sandwich
Gatherings
Outrageous, brothers
Shall we take a count
Are they out or do
They take this one
To the highest court
In the land?
Withdraw your labour
Or just rage and rant
In the fading light
Gary’s protestations of
Innocence, he’s adamant
Never question Sir Bobby’s
Saviour at Italia 1990
It is merely a Twitter
Opinion, possibly
Tactless and ill advised
Let’s have some perspective
After all.
Surely wrong but then
Again right
A moral minefield
Confusion and panic
But then an oasis of calm
Even so how did
Match of the Day become caught
In this gun fire of mixed metaphors?
Perhaps stop these emotive words
Football deserves something
Much better
Now here pronto
Before social media
Comes face to face
With another volatile meltdown
Commonsense, that’s it.

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Oh woe West Ham!

joe morris

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

Oh woe West Ham
It feels like sackcloth and ashes
Fond childhood reminiscences
Of eating what looked like
Wood shavings or the pencil
Sharpener remnants for breakfast
Doctor insisted you were lacking in
Fibre, roughage young man
That’s what you need
A sharp injection of healthy
Starters for the day
I kid you not
At the moment claret and blue
Clothes are tattered and threadbare
Today battered in Brighton
Thumped, pounded into the ground
West Ham humiliated by seaside
Strollers along broken,
Cracked East End pavements
Today chronic indigestion
At the Amex, bloated by
Another grim diet of four goals
Against as opposed to four
In the right net against Forest
It all feels like those relegation
Bound seasons before
Sentences are passed by revered
Judges in grey wigs
Send them down to their miserably
Dark police cell
West Ham guilty of self inflicted
Crime amid sorrowful
Court proceedings
It almost feels like deja vu
For hung over Hammers
Driven unceremoniously out of
The FA Cup by Manchester United
Now swept out across relentless
South Coast waves, no more
Than passengers at Brighton and Hove Albion
Sea sickness sets in with
A vengeance
Marooned in the Med
Hammers pummelled and thrashed
4-0.
It reminds you of that season
When in the last year of academia
School friends huddled conspiratorially
By Upton Park’s very intimate corner
Of South Bank discourse
West Ham face Liverpool in last
Game of the season late 1970s
Age of punk rebellion
They all believed the claret
And blue collective were going down
To the old Second Division
How right they were
How small you felt
Relegation for the first time
For almost 20 years
Since Ted Fenton returned
His 1958 brood back to the top
Flight to fight without fright
With the big boys in the playground
But now David Moyes
Has nowhere to go
Seemingly resigned to his fate
Oh how good it was at Upton Park
The light show of glistening fags
For the second half
In the bleak, dark wintry nights
Of Saturday afternoon
The Chicken Run in full melody
Sweet as the cider and lager
Of victory
Green Street ablaze with amber
Street lights, cockles, whelks
And eels stimulating greater
Appetites for more of the same
But now only the repulsive smell
Of manure and compost,
Yet more helpings of the
Championship
The London Stadium hosting
Championship football
It feels like iron filings
Industrial drudgery
For the West Ham faithful
Stratford welcomes Millwall
Again and again,
How degrading that sounds
But maybe this is a blessing
In disguise
Who needs those multi millionaire
Show offs, those pampered egos
Premier League
Who needs its high and mighty
Haughtiness, its total disregard
Of the rest of football’s
Neglected and discarded names
From the past.
The class divide that once
Left Barrow and Workington
In football’s derelict wastelands
Old rags and rubbish
In its dejected dustbins
For now though
West Ham clinging onto
Premier League status
For dear life
Normality across most
Seasons, after two top 10 finishes
But keep the faith
Those ironworks and foundries
May yet prosper for ever
One day perhaps
Come on you Irons
Just a little coaxing
Encouragement, that
Support must never fade
In adversity must come
Triumph. It will be.

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It’s the League Cup Final surely

joe morris

Sunday, February 26th, 2023

Now for those of us who cling
Stubbornly to tradition
And the way things used to be
It is the League Cup Final today
Surely the distant cousin
Of the FA Cup
That once adorned the mantlepiece
Of springtime’s earliest blossom
Next to that photo of Uncle George
Who fought for his country
And the goblet of history
Where the brandy of his youth
Longed for peace
And so the League Cup was born
All those years later
Alan Hardaker’s brainchild
On the verge of the Sixties
Revolution of fashion and
The Fab Four
When paperback writers became
Newspaper readers
Aston Villa, the first recipients
Of the League Cup trophy
Back page headline Roy of the
Rovers heroes
A claret and blue procession
Of League Cup yesteryear
Battle hardened warriors
Rotherham, remarkably so
Then Rochdale on the second
Birthday of the League Cup
Who saw that one coming?
Beaten by the Norfolk folk
Of Norwich in the Final
Rochdale synonymous with Gracie
Fields scattered with notable
Aspidistras in the land
And homegrown morals and values
But this afternoon it’s
The Carabao Cup Final
A Cup Final sponsored by
Thai energy drinks
By the grasping hands of commerce
Or is this simply progress?
Last night Newcastle United
Launched a full scale takeover
Of Trafalgar Square
A vast black and white garden
The Toon gathering on London
Fountains and lions
West End of London pilgrims
From the land of Geordie
Of bubbly effervescence
Newcastle first League Cup Final
Since their last in 1974
When Manchester United their
Opponents today
Wore the light and blue
Of their noisy neighbours
City, playground rivals
Bellowing at the top of their voices
How will we forget
That astonishing bicycle kick
Or scissor kick goal?
Denis Tueart who impersonated
The histrionic acrobatics
Of City’s dashing dexterity
A goal to treasure
Savour and salivate on
Their tips of their tongues
Then rolled around their mouths
And then richly celebrated
Newcastle though downbeat
Despairing, losers again
But not today for Newcastle
Believe in the Eddie Howe
Philosophy bought into
Quite happily with millions
Of Saudi money
This is their day for
Holding trophies aloft
On Wembley’s fair and pristine
Acres
Underneath the Arches
But sadly not a sign
Of Flanagan and Allen
To amuse the black and white
Clientele
Just a Geordie party of all parties
Manchester United beware
Of the Red Devils
Fiendish in the extreme
Hungry for first hints
Of Old Trafford resurrection
Be on your guard Wembley

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John Motson- the legend and sheepskin coat

joe morris

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

In bygone days when flares
Had flair and denims had dash
With fashionable finesse
One man and one man alone
Encapsulated it all,
The Beautiful Game in
Purple prose, perfectly
Excitable at times
But beautifully honest
Dripping with sincerity
John Motson
There, you’ve said it
The name that conjured
up whole stages
Of our teenage years
The footballing font
Of all wisdom, sage
And sagacity in every
Breathless sentence
Motty, a vast festival
Of the right words
In absolutely perfect
Harmony, pitch, tone
Motty alongside Barry
Davies, the holy duo
Two walking and talking
Encyclopaedias
Groaning with meticulous
Research, painstaking
Detail. What more could
Football have wanted
Whether it be every Scunthorpe
Back four and inside forward line
Since 1964 or Portsmouth’s centre
Halves who illuminated their Pompey
Years. Even a comprehensive breakdown
Of every Liverpool goal scorer since
The Second World War
There was David Coleman. 1-0 with emphasis
Of course.
Ken Wolstenholme with sharp, clipped
Public school tones and lilting cadences
After every word uttered
Of course there were people on the pitch
We could see them from the corner
Of our eyes. Peripheral vision
Unnecessary.
But then came Motty
John Motson and 1972
The iconic year when
From a country field
In deepest Herefordshire
The voice of Motty
Oozed profusely
Like the cream
On morning coffee
Richly fragrant
As a summer’s dawn
When the rose and
Begonia stretched out
And embraced Motty
With the warm and tender
Embrace of nature’s easy glow
And then Hereford turned
Up BBC’s newest recruit
Fresh from the commentator’s cradle
It was the match of all matches
For John Motson
A rapturous introduction
But this was vital
Get it wrong Motty
And the exit is that way
But we knew Hereford would oblige
In their non League attire
Giant killers in their most
Sartorially correct suit
Motty gazed across that rustic
Vista of bleating sheep and
Contemplative cows chewing the cud
Look at that Malcolm Macdonald
In those Geordie black and white
Stripes of Newcastle
What an upstart, what a charlatan
A pretender to the throne
Where Hereford proudly occupy
Their FA Cup victory on muddy lands
Of glory and yet more
Triumphant grammar
Then Motty became the household name
Idolised for facts and stats
Never short of scientific
Calculations and maths of
Style and class
None could ever match him
For verbs and adverbs
Where precision mattered
In the heat of battle
The man who once reminded
Us in black and white days
That Spurs were in the yellow
And when Platini once scored
In lands of French Euro bliss
1984, Michel Platini had scored
Of course he had
But Motty was the confirmation
The affirmation, the voice
Of acclaim and ecstasy
Oh John Motson
You’re no longer with us
But the voice upon which
Football once took its cue
And baton
Will always be alive
Thankyou Motty.

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Spurs again and West Ham

joe morris

Friday, February 17th, 2023

The weekend begins with a puff of smoke
An explosive air hangs over Spurs
The smell of cordite
Beaten by the mesmerising Milan
During Champions League tete a tete
Now facing their London neighbours
On Sunday roast gatherings
Spurs and West Ham
A battle as old as the hills
Mutual loathing and yet not
Quite as personal as the team
In red at the Emirates
Spurs blowing hot and cold
Sometimes untouchable and
Unsurpassable, once a force of nature
The next rather like a sandcastle
Washed away by thirsty seas
And yet they hate the claret and blue
For reasons that may seem beyond us
The intolerable ones they cry
When was the last time the Hammers
Lifted a heavyweight trophy aloft
But then the sages who preside
Over the London Stadium
Consult their Rothmans again
And find Spurs as holders
Of the 1991 FA Cup against
Cloughie’s Forest, sadly
His last stand
How we lament the impassioned
Brian. Young man
But Spurs and West Ham
It almost sounds like an argument
In an old fashioned saloon bar
Give me another whisky and bourbon
Barman and bar woman before chucking out time
You remember the contests of old
The emperor Bobby Moore, Clyde Best,
Johnny Ayris, Ade Coker pitting their wits
Against the lovably warm hearted Greavesie,
Martin Chivers, now there was a Spurs legend
Of noble breeding and stature,
Alan Gilzean ghosting through defences
A poltergeist of a player
Barely discernible but always cunning,
threatening and then lethal
Always in the same sentence
Invisible at one moment
Then striking like a cobra
In the undergrowth the next
Latching onto passes, the connection
The conduit through which everything
Spurs did flow
Then there was Ralph Coates
Lovely Ralph
Hair like a corn of the cob
Wisps of hair combed over
Discreetly but always drawn
To a football magnetically,
Always gliding towards goal
Like a young cygnet near
A late summer evening of
Sun beams rippling over
The rivers of our childhood
And of course today, always
And there was Steve Perryman
Solid as a rock, the late
Cyril Knowles, Nice one Cyril
Always tackling the thorniest
Of issues
But on Sunday Conte’s Spurs
Meet Moyes East Enders
For tenancy rights,
The keys to local derby
Supremacy
This is our manor
Our victory just for the day
No unsavoury quarrelling gentlemen
Though. It is only football
But for Spurs and West Ham
This will be the end of their world
Should the Lillywhite shirts triumph
Or claret and blue just mature with
Vintage aplomb
Then tempers may flare
When football abandons sanity
And the local London derby
With its pungent odours
Of gallows humour
Poison and vitriol in the air
A gentle whiff of altercation
Then righteous indignation
We hate Tottenham
And we hate Tottenham
Before they launch
Another artillery of verbal
Bullets at the claret and blue
Army.
Then violent insults pour
From bitter Spurs lips loaded
With hatred
Yet maybe laced with
Grudging appreciation
Of each other
Never expressed
In the heat of battle
Withering four lettered invective
Oh what an unseemly feud
Oh the fond memories of Bill Nick
And the avuncular Ron Greenwood
Your uncle, our cousin, our friend
Managers taught the virtues
Of good manners and morality
Spurs and West Ham
The local derby must commence
Again. Act two, scene two.

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Rothmans Year Book.

joe morris

Saturday, January 14th, 2023

Here we are all together
In the boisterous world
Of football’s infancy
Neither screaming or crying
Since that would be sour grapes
The beginning of another year
And time to ponder the wondrous
Literary landscape
Of the Rothmans Year Book
Essential reading for those
Partial to minutiae
The small print,
But the legible details
Of football’s logistics,
Results from long ago,
Lists of historic fixtures
Reflections of who we
Were when nostalgia came
Knocking on our door
The Rothmans Year Book
Seemed designed solely
For statisticians meticulous
To their finger bones
Thumbing through matches
From previous yesteryear
Goal scorers, attendances
Galore in every margin,
Lines of names and icons
From all four divisions
In the day when football
Had First, Second, Third
Fourth, footballs of the
Medicine variety
Hard as rocks and boulders
So the Rothmans
Indulged itself in analysis
Records of defeat and victory
In carefully carved marble and stone
We found them in Uncle David’s
Chest of drawers
Since he was the hoarder
Of sentimental documents
So you leafed through your
Team’s painstaking progress
And never knew whether
The literature would ever change
West Ham, almost permanently moored
In choppy, precarious waters,
Never sure of safety at any point
Waiting for life rafts and boats
To salvage them from relegation
Storm tossed oceans
Always on the precipice of the trapdoor
Fighting for survival, gasping, bobbing
In thunderous, foaming seas of danger
Critical emergency
But the Rothmans had always told
Us quite clearly
That the claret and blue ensemble
Once witnessed well over 40,000
at Upton Park against noisy neighbours
Spurs, Stunning achievement, the East End
Heaving, shoulder to shoulder
Reconciliation confirmed
After crushing defeat to Liverpool
The week before, that much was clear
And of course at Anfield
Since those were the empty, fallow
Years for Irons hardy faithful
And yet the Rothmans always informed us
About football from the whole pyramid
The Isthmian League, the non League
Brothers in arms.
The old Scottish First Divisions
When Rangers and Celtic were just
Swapping casual notes about repetitive
League Championships
The Rothmans Year Book, up to date
A topical treasure chest of information,
Delectation and edification, groaning with
Facts, arcane, the realms of the improbable
League tables when 42 matches
Were the extent of its vast knowledge
And shorts were invariably baggier
Than the week before
Scores that defied and suspended belief
Goal-less draws and score draws
The absurdity of finishing sixth
In the old First Division last season
And then horror stricken at the discovery
Of ending two places above the relegation zone
The following season
While the next we encountered mid table
Buoyancy when hardened claret and blue
Followers knew the body language
Told a different story
The Rothmans Year Book
Was our museum of the old
And new football of the present day
A portfolio of where we were
When the Hammers finally stopped
The rot and we saw the May 1975
The FA Cup, a dramatic milestone
Moments of FA Cup Final magic
Against Fulham. Patience was a virtue
They’d finally done it, 2-0 victory
Alan Taylor from Gracie Fields Rochdale
Then there were yet more chocolate selections
Of how many squeezed into East End
Blissful claustrophobia at Upton Park
When Manchester United came calling
34,248 to be precise
While Stoke City were almost overlooked
In the hectic rush
When barely 20,000 clicked through
Decaying turnstiles that soon met
Some well deserved tender loving care
In July’s summer hiatus
Defeats and victories almost collided
With each other head on
No sign of any consistent patterns
Totally unpredictable
And the Rothmans Year book
Was there to record it for
Our further reading pleasure,
The old First Division’s starmakers,
Show ponies who in one match
Compiled goals as if for fun
Followed by nothing, insignificance
Anonymous against Leicester
Nowhere to be seen then apparently
There were whole columns of hat-tricks
The Rothmans Year books
Bristling with nostalgia
The agonised yelps of reminiscence
Before present day heartaches
And torrid travails
Told that we’d lost five on the trot.
And then the despondent slump into
The old Second Division
We knew it would happen
The late 1970s compendium of stats
And facts.
It was there in clear print
Evidence of the damage
The jury find the Hammers
Guilty
It’s there on Page 231
Of the Rothmans
Sheer delight

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/news/poem-tags/football/page/3/