Football Poets

The close season.

Oh the commotion and rumpus
It’s the end of the season
And now the close season
Football in summer holiday mode
The empty void between high summer
And early autumn sooner this year
Since World Cup carnivals loom
Amid the tinsel and glitter of festive
Christmas revelries
How absurd, almost unseemly
But now the domestic season
Ends with City as champs again
And Liverpool on the verge of yet
Another landmark Champions League
Trophy, how many will be that?
Almost a trophy cabinet among more
Trophy cabinets of silver with only
The Mighty Real of Madrid in their way
Oh, trembling lips, hearts suspended
In readiness for another open topped
Procession through the chatty
Murmurings of garrulous Anfield streets
The neutrals are willing Liverpool onto
Victorious podiums, it could be theirs
And yet now there is silence across
Football’s playing fields broken only by
Barking dogs on far distant roads, cross
Country trains now heading for the seaside
Proms rather than Old Trafford, Anfield, the
Etihad, the Emirates and Spurs new domain
A break, a hollow hiatus before the first day
Of August when the Premier League’s big boys
Stoke up the competitive fires, normal service
Resumed,
Referees whistles hidden in discreet
Corners of FA chests of drawers
Where none can argue their case
For a while
Recreational goal posts and bars in once
Atmospheric parks now reduced to empty
Green spaces of now white flannelled cricket
Summer splendour
Displaying their sedate finery
Next to white marquees and dusty
Wickets among deep mid wicket
Leisure and pleasure, soaring
Sixes to different continents and fours
Hooked over good natured drunken taverns
And third man boundary patrol
Football though takes a back seat
Nobody to mock or insult, vilify
Or even humiliate since essentially
The fans love their targets of abuse
The opposition are hopeless
And always will be
The boo boys will always have
The last word
But now it’s summer and football
Is just a memory from way back
When, now a Rothmans Year Book
Page recording another season’s
Highs and lows, trials
And tribulations,
The kids will probably still play on
The pavements, the spacious grassy
Parks, rush goalie, coats for goalposts
Scenery of timeless five a side exchanges
But football may not be the dominant force
Until August blows another round of whistles
And jocular banter
But now football will turn into its familiar
Shop window of transfer gossip
Towards the rumour factory where
Thousands of South Americans, Africans and
Obscure corners of Europe and America
Will hold out for at least 30 billion in the bank
And that’s just for a week’s work or maybe by
The hour, the millions are non negotiable
Yes it’s The Greed is Good League
The great Brian Glanville was absolutely right
Anyway let the bucket and spade brigade
Descend on their exotic islands in the sun
Top up their leathery faces with tans and
Massage weary egos and privileged accounts
The close season always seemed that peculiar
Moment when the pre-season fixtures coincided
Neatly with Wimbledon tennis, strawberries and
Cream, the resounding
Clatter, thump and crack of the smaller ball
Variety.
Football on its summer holiday again

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Gazza

Gazza
This is the cautionary tale
Of the man
Who fell into the deepest well
Amid the sleazy debauchery
Of drugs, sex and rock and roll
Blurred visions of kebabs, lager
Growing larger
That took its severest toll
On the Paul Gascoigne of old
And new but we knew that
This medieval court jester
Would always fester in dark
Doorways of riotous hedonism
Nightclub tenancies where
Gazza wined and dined
Drunk to the point of
Ludicrous forgetfulness
The morning after the thirstiness
Could never be quenched
This young genius could never be benched
So the Geordie poster boy
From Newcastle’s finest
But never coy
Oh the impudence and insubordination
That Gazza gave us in spades
Upon the blades of green
Accurate and clean
Heavenly, angelic and ethereal skills
Gazza, passing of more refinement and
Yet more thrills
But then there was the World Cup
Of Italia 90 when Bobby Robson
Trusted his warrior but then crumpled
Rumpled with despair, when Gazza
Was booked and hooked and Lineker
Winked and pointed the finger
As Gazza threatened to pull the trigger
Only for Waddle and Pearce to miss
Penalties that landed in Naples
A staple diet of agonising near misses
Hisses of English disapproval on Italian
Soil where the blood did boil
And then when Graham Taylor
Claimed not to like something
And questioned linesman on
Future employment prospects
Gazza in the midst of private turmoil
Grinning, gurning, gesticulating
Painting the town red, performing,
Face contorting, burping and belching
To those who exposed his fault lines
When the wines once flowed
How dreadful it must have been
Living life to the full, but now open
To ridicule, World Cup 1994
Now lost forever in the hellish realms
Of the nightmare goal-less draw
Gazza had rebellion and non conformity
Where none could find him in any dormitory
In that hard wired mindset
You bet. The party animal
Could never be tamed
And yet we never blamed
The excessive self indulgence
In the beaming light of astonishing
Refulgence
Finally there was the Glen Hoddle
Fiasco of 1998 when Gazza
Sadly pressed the self destruct button
Bloated and beaten, bloodied and bandaged
Paul Gascoigne, soul now destroyed
But spirit unscathed
Hoddle torn between the Gazza
Who might have been, a shadow
Of his former self. Now there’s a tiresome cliche
Then Venners, Terry Venables and Euro 96
Oh what bitterness and more tears and weary
Years. If only the lunging leg had connected
And affected our thoughts on Football Coming Home
The Germans may have been weeping into their fulsome
Steins of Munich beerfests
Now Gazza though could only ponder
On days of lilywhite shirts of Spurs,
Teeside Boro and richly Scottish shortbread
Helpings of Glasgow Rangers
For now he has been cast into the land
Of isolation where once there
Was phenomenal popularity
Among the heaving masses
Gazza you were the best
Among those in football who
Believed in the rest
Of his special talent

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Russian Euros – surely not

We must have thought it was an early April Fool
My and wife and I must have been thinking
Russia, hosts for the Euros 2028
Surely a mistake, a horrible
Lapse in judgment
Far too many shots of vodka
An alcoholic blur
Our imaginations twisted
By Russian fraud
The shocking audacity
Of it all
This is a deceitful sham
Roubles are changing
Hands as we take in
The chutzpah and cheek
After all the burning flames
Of hellish death, fractured,
Broken Ukraine homes
Scarred and charred
Smoking, weeping Ukraine
And Russia looking to rub
Salt into the wounds
How dare they?
In retrospect there was
the 2018 World Cup
And none batted an eye
Lid in solemn Kremlin
Bureaucratic minefields, but
Russia lose all perspective
On the cold fields of shame,
Not hint of remorse or sorrow
Euros 2028, it’s an ugly dystopian
Vision, turn off the social media
Banter, ignore the propaganda
It is the worst of all prospects
Let the subject never be mentioned
Again, never even considered
Banned for eternity
Never spoken of, utterly taboo
Putin must be held to account
Before football becomes his
Childhood toy, his evil excuse
For manipulation of the
Beautiful Game,
Russia, Euros 2028 has to be
A sickening thud on the grapevine
Of rumour, just a subdued mutter
And mumble in UEFA’s
Upper echelons where
Occasionally nonsense
Prevails in potty, discordant
Notes and voices of
Bumbling idiocy
International football
In Russia now in
The present tense
You have to be kidding
After everything you’ve
Perpetrated, damaged
And destroyed
Criminal violations
Of barbaric death
And suffering,
What a nerve
Putin, look at us
In the face
Your search for
Credibility has
Just fallen into
The darkest pit
A cesspit of
Disgraceful acts
Of unforgivable
Murder
Please Russia
Just leave the Euros
To those who know
Best
The air is thick
With Putin’s poisonous
Ways

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My dad.

You’ll never know how much you mean to me, dad
I loved you deeply and always will
And yet could never appreciate the visceral thrill
Although you never wore the football clothes
Of today and tomorrow’s shows at the feverish
Cauldron of the Boleyn, never moaning or groaning
But then
You said you couldn’t stand football
So I just sat down and contemplated
Never deflated
Your love, permanently over and over again

At kitchen tables we discussed Mercedes, Jags
Your cigarettes and fags, but who cared since
When you walked through the family’s door
And all things relating to the cars you did adore
But when I mentioned West Ham and England
Football’s feet of clay
You simply closed the doors at the topics of the day
Peter Lorimer’s thunderous shot,
So what. If Ron Harris tackled with fury
You preferred Juke Box Jury

Football was just for muddied oafs and never
The discussion of the day
But you were the best dad,
Whichever way
It was Fulham even though
You went with the flow
Your acquaintance with the Cottagers
Had no relation to Bestie, Marsh or Johnny
Haynes,
You were simply content with snooker frames

I loved you dad for you were the one
Your family thought you were glorious fun
Who, gently digesting Sunday sprouts
Questioned those football louts
Crunching mum’s lunch or brunch,
You Inquired at the necessity for the Big Match
When Brian Moore told us about the catch
Of the day from Peter Mellor, Fulham’s
Goalkeeper, home and away

Dad, you were the finest regardless of your aversion
To the football version I knew without exception
Thankyou for always being there, loving and clear
So affectionate and dear
Just my lifelong attachment to claret and blue
Upton Park, free kicks, corners, they were few
But you knew my brother and I were there
And we cared
Passionately for you

I’ll never forget you dad because you loved
My brother and I unconditionally even
Despite the season
Though you could never identify with
Ron Greenwood, Don Revie and Sir Alf
Or that bloke Ralph from Spurs
At the passions and fashions of West Ham
And England when tanners became new pence
You must have known
I could never sit on the fence

Dad, I knew you shuddered with apprehension
When the tension proved too much
But then the final whistle blew and you
Sighed with relief when Martin Chivers,
Alan Clarke and Tony Currie finally took
To the tunnel at the falling of the autumnal leaf

What was the point, you cried of 90 minutes
Of huff and puff, men chasing a leather ball
All that nostalgic stuff
So I hugged and embraced you, dad
For I knew you were struggling with
Offside laws
How to keep the ball on floors
Of greenswards,
Football of distinction
Co-ordination and the finest sheen
And that number nine who’s now a has been

I’ll never forget you dad, football was
Never your meat and potatoes,
The flavour of any month
Though you must have had a hunch
But Fulham was your team although
You would never know understand
Football’s vocal band
When you crunched mum’s adorable lunch
You hardly knew why football had to be so boring
But we understood your snoring at goal-less draws
On East End shores
Even when you began to cry
When the Eagles of Palace began to fly
But we would laugh together at the sudden moods
Of the day when the Hammers won with foods
In our stomach, the hunger for goals would
Never subside, we were never goal shy
Canaries fly.
But you were there for us dad
Always at our side we were so glad

We knew you loathed the mention
Of football and its condescension
When the upper classes sniffed
At football’s nonsensical riffs
You crunched mum’s lunch
At mum’s lovely brunch
And never disapproved of my
West Ham colours of claret
And blue covers of Bubbles
In the air
You were always there
Love you dad for ever

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The Rams take a battering.

Oh dear Derby County
In danger of no bounty
Since those halcyon days
When Cloughie and Taylor
Were fierce and forthright
When the Rams were
Always in
Full flight
Today Derby are no
Longer residents of
the Baseball Ground
Where once gypsy
Curses were once
Found
In hidden
Corners of fulsome
Stands where once
The exuberant masses
Witnessed the bands
Of pre-match tannoy
Musical blasts
In 1972 and then
The supporting casts
Three years hence
First Division
League Championships
Won
Above the fence
Gemmill and Rioch
Occupied the middle
Domain, engineers
Behind the machine
And chain, linking
Midfield thinkers
Who never had stinkers
Who remain
In the hearts
Derby County
Where once
Raich Carter
Once Bachelor
Of Arts
And then
Married to football
When Derby were
A name
To be reckoned
With his family
Who became
Wedded to fame
But now Derby
With Wayne
Rooney in
Charge
Hover over
The trapdoor
Of nowhere
Although they
Still keep the ball
On the floor
But Derby
We care for
You in a
Compassionate
Way,
May you recapture
That day
When the penalty
Spot disappeared
And Manchester
City were scared
Of those formidable
White Derby shirts
Keep faith in the future
Where Pride in your Park
Always lurks

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For West Ham read the class of 65.

Far too young to appreciate the seed
Of class and ingenuity
When the claret and blue
Class of 1965, held aloft
The Cup Winners Cup at
Wembley but 56 years
Hence, could the apparition
Be more real than imagined
For way back then, Moore,
Hurst, Peters in tandem
with Brian Dear the Stag
Antlers sharp, Johnny
Sissons on flank duty
Who remind you of scissors
That cut inside defenders,
A bludgeon and rapier
On this night of nights
Teasing and tormenting
Full of skulduggery and
Subterfuge, tomfoolery
And jet heeled propulsion
Alan Sealey, Ronnie Boyce
Whose classical overtures
Pearls of wisdom, passes
Like sighs of disbelief
Articulate paragraphs
On the written page
For Wembley 1965
Perhaps read May 2022
Who knows
Fairy tale imaginings
In the East End
Foundries where
The musical docks
Once resounded to
The Chicken Run roar
And probably still do
In our innermost thoughts
And the Upton Park
Acoustics blasted out
Melodies that ring again on
The glorious night
When the Cup Winners Cup
Held pride of place
Bobby victorious
Wembley, Wembley.

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