Football Poets

Opening day in the Championship

So football resumes in the lower sculleries
While the butlers and cooks downstairs
Work themselves into the ground
Porters and proletariat
Can only gaze with admiration
At the insanely wealthy elite
In the Premier League
But yesterday the Championship
Took centre stage
Formerly the old Second Division
In the days of tanners, sixpences,
Shillings when those lovely but
Now antiquated Red Routemaster buses
Are now but rusting remnants of yesteryear
And yet Saturday at 3 in the
Afternoon underwent
A brief resurrection
Blackburn in the heart of the Industrial
North of England brush aside the
Baggies of West Brom
Like dust under the carpet
Then the Robins
Were up at the crack of dawn
Tweeting sweetly
While Bristol City are
Held by Tom Finney’s
Once Preston Invincibles
Utterly melodious
At the height of summer
Then Middlesbrough
Come unstuck
In their own backyard
Against roaring, rampant
Lions of Millwall amid
Thorns and bushes
Of the Riverside
Boro now only a silhouette
Of their former self
Darkening shadows in
A forgotten world
Where once Manchester City,
United, Arsenal and Chelsea
Were as predominant as only
The best could be
And then Norwich
Content to live their lives
On trampolines bouncing
Precariously between the
Two top divisions
Beware of Delia’s rousing
Exhortations,
Get your act together
Canaries, defeat
Is morally unacceptable
Norwich promptly swot aside
Hull of the Humber
A bridge too far
3-1 to the Canaries
Norfolk birds in perfect tune
Oh Pilgrims gather together
On sacred Saturdays
Of course football is a religion
Plymouth Argyle
Where Michael Foot once
Gazed across Home Park
Wisely as only a parliamentarian
Could only possibly be
Pilgrims overcome yapping Terriers
Of Huddersfield who once
Reigned supreme in football’s
Upper classes
And Herbert Chapman
With League Championships
Repeatedly so
When football wore bowlers
And watch fobs
Football at its giddiest pinnacles
Arsenal too
Herbert you were heavenly
Now Stoke, also belonging to football’s
Dusty wardrobes
Top flight residents
For several decades
Sweeping aside the Merry Millers
Of Rotherham
Effortlessly so
Meanwhile, we notice
Stoke City desperately seeking
The greener pastures
Of the Premier League
Does anybody know a short cut
To the gold embossed lands
Of the Emirates, the Etihad,
Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford?
It’s the Bet365 stadium
It is you know
Stupefyingly sponsored
Incomprehensible but
Today’s generation
The Victoria Ground
Now resigned to a Victorian
Incarnation where horse
And cart once ruled the roads
Alan Durban who abhorred
The pretty fineries of the
Game may have just
Despaired
The Swans held to
Score draw
By Brum
Fear not Swansea
Nor Birmingham
It is but the opening day
Of footballing hostilities
No need to panic
Next May is in some far
Off country, county
And shire
Sheffield Wednesday
Re-capture something
Of their Premier League
Flights of fancy
But relegated Saints
Come calling on Friday
Evening
Southampton searching
For signposts to upper
Crust rooms of
Millions and aristos
Finally the Hornets
Of Watford
Full of sting and bite
Devour QPR
A tasty meal
For two
Football, yes
It’s back
Pangs of hunger
For victories too

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