Football Poets

Johan Neeskens- a Dutch master dies

And so football bows its head
For a Dutch master
From its greatest team
Of World Cup editions
When 1974 and 1978
Belonged to the golden age
Johan Neeskens
Dies but certainly
Not without recognition
Since Johan was born
Among a glittering array
Of stars and men
Who embraced Total Football
In a way a mother or father
Hugs their son or daughter
We speak of Neeskens
But have to include Cruyff,
The King of that noble castle
Krol, Rensenbrink, Van Hanaghem
Neeskens was a full time architect
In a team of builders and
Reinvention, always riffing
And always models of improvisation
With or without the ball
Neeskens was the emotional fulcrum
Handsome as his extraordinary colleagues
Measuring, always at ease
Seeing things that very few saw
Never quite as feted as Cruyff
Since Cruyff was tying all
Of his defenders in twisted knots
And blood vessels
But Neeskens was the barometer
The gauge behind the
Orange revolution
Always gazing around at
The bigger picture
Thinking one step ahead
Of the rest
Incomparable genius
Goal scorer of course
But contemplating
The future rather than the
Past, always on the
Same page as his Dutch
Crowned kings
A radical visionary
The Dutch template
Two successive World Cups
Slipped agonisingly from
His grasp
Netherlands
Losers in two finals
But nobody blamed
Neeskens since
He was immune from
The snipers, the bullies
Neeskens had everything
In his locker
Touch, awareness,
Almost a sixth sense
A premonition of goals
Stepovers and dragbacks
When the mood suited him
Since the Dutch could
Multi task, spin a thousand
Plates at the same time
But Johan Neeskens
Rose above the carnage
And madness of
Football’s red and yellow cards
The ferocious fouls
And the sumptuous stylists
Even though he too could
Get stuck in
Passing with scientific
Succinctness
Knowing where the goal was
Studying the game
In the quietest of
Footballing libraries
Barcelona clutched him
To their heart
Like a beloved son
But the Netherlands
Claimed him as
Part of their family
And never looked back
Again

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The great Svengali

We thought we knew Sven
But of course we did
Even though the inscrutable Swede
Always kept everything
Locked up inside
From time to time
He would throw his head
To one side in anger
Baffled and livid
Incensed at himself
Because he thought it
Was his fault
His responsibility
In his debut World Cup
2002, it was a valiant attempt
But just short of the line
Then Becks came charging to
England’s rescue
That famous free kick
Against Greece
The last gasp equaliser
That sent us to yet more
World Cups and Euros
A never ending cycle
Of so close and yet so far
The edge and precipice
Where glory met Sven
On Mount Olympus
Before the cold shoulder
Of reality sent shivers
Down England’s spines
But Sven was never downhearted
Persistent with European
Art movements in his blood
The cultured approach
That England welcomed so
Delightedly, let’s learn
The pass and move mantra
Live from Nordic shores
Keep the ball on the deck
The long ball dinosaurs
Should now become extinct
Sven Goran Eriksson
We pay tribute to you
In passing to football heaven
Forget and forgive private
Misdemeanours, just recall
The Swede who changed the
English obsession with up
And under
Who always did things his way
The right mindset
RIP Sven

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Stan Bowles- a tribute

And so the flame has been
Snuffed out completely
Stanley, oh Stanley
Rebel, non conformist
Vices and temptations
You succumbed to so
Sadly
But the nation loved you
And always will
Stan Bowles now no longer
The Saturday afternoon darling
Who beguiled, charmed, educated
Those who thought football was just a dull
Rumbling noise
That flared into orange
Balls of fire
At Loftus Road
Stan Bowles
Maverick mischief maker
Never where he should have
Been when the West London
Streets called him back
In for tea
Absorbed by the bookies bug
Where the familiar
Bets on the 2.15
At Market Rasen
And Sandown
Prevailed for a while
While the 3.00
Kick off beckoned
At the business end
Of the old First Division
Just a flutter
He cried and implored
Bowles, the clandestine punt
On our four legged friends
But don’t tell
Those in the
Highest authorities
Gordon Jago must have
Known of course
But Stan lived his life
To the full, on the edge
The threshold of a step
Too far
And yet Stan Bowles
Was the epitome of class
And style
Silky, sinuous hips on the
Ball, slaloming past opponents
Tricking, teasing and taunting
That was hard wired into his DNA
Trapping and stunning a ball
With crafty deviousness
And duplicity
Football was Stan’s
Lifelong romance
Firstly at City for a while
But then seduced by the bright
Lights of lovely London town
Almost the Talk of the Town
Pavements of gold
And feverish expectation
Stan the sorcerer of course
Sometimes condemned to the
Naughty step and then fined
Heavily for misdemeanours
Too many
Late nights,
Boozy early mornings
When the pubs were locked
Down and then opened
For the beery misfits
Stan was the shining star
The best of the best
One of the boys
The personification of
Roguishness, another of
Those lively lads
Whatever happened to them?
It could have been so different
For England
If only you’d hit the pillow
At a respectable hour
But the nights went on forever
And the heady hedonism
Sent your head to into a dizzying
Swirl in the good time set
But Stan was our finest
Ripping up the script
And doing things his way
A joyous court jester
In football’s frenetic
Playground
We’ll never forget you.

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The measure of our dreams

I buried myself in my sport
There’s no doubt I gave it my all
For whenever a match was mentioned
Without fail, I always heeded the call

Put a ball at my feet
And I was off like a whippet
Always to the sound of my own commentary….
“Beats one, beats two”; and that’s just a snippet

But post-match
We all loved a thundering tune
And in amongst the crooners and boomers
There was only one who made me swoon

“Thousands – are – sailing
A-cross, the west-ern ocean”;
A lachrymose lament to the diaspora
Laced with all sorts of homesick notions

“To a land of op-por-tun-ity
That some of them, will never see”;
Just like me and my fellow dreamers
Pro ballers, that we’ll never, ever, be

So with “fortune prevailing”
From his Annual Christmas airing
Shane will now join up with Kirsty
Making a fine celestial pairing

Meanwhile, all we fans can do
Is continue with our dreaming
In the hope that football and music
Will continue to keep us beaming

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Francis Lee- an obituary

We’ll never forget Franny
How could we ever overlook the
Snarl, the growl and bite,
The sound and fury
That physical reaction
When once Franny Lee
Exploded with anger
Seething, simmering
The Baseball Ground
Had never seen
Anything like it
Since the gypsy’s curse
Which disturbed the furniture
Rocked Derby County
When the 20th century was still
In its cot, bawling its eyes out
But Francis Lee and Norman Hunter
Squared up to each other
Like schoolchildren in the playground
Behind the bike shed
Lee, bursting a blood vessel
While Stormin’ Norman
Of the parish of Leeds
Who once bit legs for a living
Hunter and Lee
The Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua
Of football’s lion’s den
It was Derby against Leeds
The heavyweight contest
That just fizzled out within minutes
Amid the mud and mayhem of the Midlands
Franny Lee, a bruiser and battler
No pugilistic background
But just fired up and galvanised
Heart on sleeve
Put them up Franny
Muttered Norman under
Seething breath,
Incandescent as the winter
Floodlights at the Baseball Ground
But serial winner of League Championships
At City and Derby
Now put that in your pipe and
Smoke it
Two achievements on the home front
While European trophies were not
That far away
After the game
Business was business
Deeply lucrative
Money in his pocket
In retirement
He never grumbled
Discontentedly at Derby
Before the horses beckoned
And the racing fraternity
Made him flush and blush
With yet more success
England caps but of course
The contours of Franny Lee’s
Career had been mapped out
Clearly
Look at that face
So one BBC legend
Once reacted
Interesting he quoted
Very interesting
But Franny Lee
Was consistency itself
Utterly engrossing
Scheming, conniving, hustling
Tireless and red blooded
Never flinching or faltering
Crunch went the tackles
Goals galore
Particularly the thunderbolt
Which almost woke up Manchester
City where he’d once shone
Like a beacon
Oh Francis Lee
What a player for all seasons
We’ll miss the gold, silver
Bronze,
The most legendary trooper

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Vialli Vialli

Vialli Vialli
In stereophonic symmetry
Crying out across the land
Tonight at the Bridge
Chelsea lower their flags
For their beloved one
Gianluca Vialli
Today departs from
His West London home
Of his stunningly
Ornamented career
Where the love flowed
From the vocal adenoids
Of the Shed, full throated
Appreciation of special
Moments and times
Of shifty feet,
Darting, sensing,directing
The flow of traffic
When Chelsea purred forward
Measurement and thought in
Every pass and tackle
Then the explosion of goals
Outside and inside penalty
Areas, an infuriating pest
To bamboozled defenders
Lethal and lissome, bold
But never cold
Classically striking up front
Accompanied by Zola
The double, dynamic team
Of the Italian job
With no assistance at all
From Michael Caine or
Benny Hill
Although Vialli did blow
Those stubborn doors down
But now Vialli is sadly
No longer in the world
Of the Blues unfurled
When the rhythms of the
Nation during the magnificent
Ancestors of Cooke, Wilkins,
Hutchinson, Webb, Alan Hudson
Spread harmony across the fields
Of Stamford Bridge
While the winds of change
Brought cultural shifts
And the Premier League was born
So too, the impeccable Cantona,
The eternally stylish Bergkamp,
Henry haughty, but blisteringly
Lethal up front at the haven of
Arsenal’s Highbury
But now Gianluca Vialli
Leaves this earth
With wisps of joy
Floating with feet
Of smoothness
Then the afterburners
Of acceleration, what pace
Another streak of lightning
But Vialli was simply unstoppable
Above the turmoil, hurly burly
Touched with class and higher realms of
Ethereality, the most delicate touch
On another planet surely
An angel of the Bridge
The stamp of legend
Where the first seeds of promise
Flowered then properly flourished
In the 21st century of Chelsea’s
Wildest fantasies
Once Drake’s ducklings
Now the neatly moulded
Creations of the Potter’s wheel
But now the legacy of Vialli’s
Memory
Leaves its well chiselled features
For ever more.

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