Football Poets

Celtic play Rangers

It’s the ultimate tartan derby
This lunchtime
Celtic against Rangers
It goes as far back
As the beginning of time
Or seemingly so
The Auld Firm derby
But not quite
Auld Lang Syne
That’s for another day
Tomorrow night
In its heavy significance
Local bragging rights
Quite definitely
The end of their world
If either dare lose
Muskets drawn
Celtic and Rangers
This means business
Firing bullets of antagonism
For decades, a hotbed
Of religious divide
But it shouldn’t be that way
Since football is a humble
Easy on the eye game
Unscarred and unblemished
By outside forces
But throughout the ages,
Gemmell, Murdoch, Auld,
David Hay, King Kenny Dalglish
Celtic through and through
Were historic if
Old acquaintances on
And off the field
With John Greig, Jim Baxter,
Ally McCoist, Fergie
Sir Alex who once wove
Webs of subterfuge at Manchester’s
United, genius
For 90 minutes,
Gazza, the magical
Entertainer for a while
And so at lunchtime
Those Scottish foes
Sworn to secrecy
Before revealing their hand
On football’s fields of
Tantalising and
Thrilling rivalry
It’s personal
For sure, undoubtedly
Glasgow holds its breath
A city burnished
With burning passions
Where green and white
Hoops clash with blue
With explicit but
Good natured blue
Parkhead will be palpitating
As it always will be
Little children and teenage
Testosterone in their
Adult affinities with
These Glasgow giants
And yet
Not those malicious monsters
Who would come to blows
In bike sheds or train stations
Just as a football match
Happened to break out
Men, women, families,
Aunts, cousins, nephews
United in earthy feelings
Of love
But temporary loathing
Nothing sinister
Of course not, love
Always bringing them
Together
Still at lunchtime
Scotland will gather
For pre Hogmanay
Drink fests and New
Year’s Eve whisky
Marathons
Whatever the result
Glasgow will celebrate
The Auld Firm derby
An epic homage
To Scottish folklore
Celtic and Rangers
Sharing a vast conveyor
Belt of League Championship
Victories, too innumerable to
Mention it or not
Make sure Edinburgh or
Aberdeen or Dundee
Can hear the bagpipes
Blaring stirringly through the Highlands
And Grampians
Because Celtic and Rangers
Will strike up the band
With orchestral opulence
This is one local derby
Where a city shows
No mercy whatsoever
Enemies on the peripheries
Of penalty areas where it
All counts
But then friends back in
The Parkhead procession of
Goals by the many
We hope
Impartiality reigns
Here in Sassenach country
Regularly spawns its produce
Of the Merseyside derby
And the Manchester gladiators
North London furnaces
Boiling with fury
At Arsenal and Spurs
But these are tea parties
Compared to Celtic and Rangers
Get ready to rumble folks
It’s about to kick off
But metaphorically not of course
This historic contest
Old as the hills
If not as ancient as
Cave dwellers
Who drew their animals
Of magnetism
When there was little else to
Do or not as be it the case
Picture postcards of personalities
And characters
Never forgotten by time
Celtic and Rangers
Bhoys meet the boys
From Ibrox
Electrifying certainly
A timeless atmosphere
Like none other

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Scotland- England

Hampden Park. Tomorrow night
A feast of culinary proportions
The Auld Lang Syne Derby
Those Auld Firm enemies
Over a century of loathing
Rivalry unmatched anywhere
Scotland against England
Older than Coronation Street
If not quite as much
But this is another edition
Of Culloden and Bannockburn
Fierce flintlock and blunderbuss
Pistols drawn
Barely concealed fury
The grandfather of grudge matches
Smoking barrels drifting across
Hadrian’s Wall
A raging tempest of tartan
England, those Sassenachs
Wickedness in white
Don’t you dare darken our corridors
Remember 1977
When the old Wembley
Almost crushed under the stampeding
Feet of Scottish revenge
Cross bars and posts snatched
Away as souvenirs
England looted and pillaged
Trampled into oblivion
Dear late Gordon Mcqueen
Rising like the proverbial salmon
For the opener
Then King Kenny Dalglish
Rubbing salt into yet more
Cliched wounds
Then there was 1967
The year after the months before
Scotland breathing fire
Full of vengeful vigour
Explosive as Guy Fawkes night
Incensed and incendiary
In 1966 it was Geoff, Martin and Bobby
But then a year later
Jinky Jimmy Johnstone danced between
English swords in a joyous jig
3-2 victory for the Scots
Take that, England
In all of your insolent insularity
All of those centuries of Henry,
George and Edward in royal commands
Now there’s Robert the Bruce
Bonny Prince Charlie
Scottish football
An all domineering force
For good
Scotland against England
Tomorrow a special anniversary
But still needle and steel
At the heart of it all.
Feisty but at times almost flippant
Since nobody really takes it that
Seriously in Wales and Northern Ireland
Oh bring back the Home Internationals
Maybe for another day
For now let the battle commence
Tomorrow at Hampden
Where once Gemmell and Murdoch
Rioch and Gemmill
Hughie Gallagher with
The dazzling feet of different
Directions defying the compass
England and Scotland
The home of a Wembley massacre
Once 9-3 in the decade that swung
Then 3 goals to the good during
The 1970s
When Gerry Francis with a cracker,
Colin Bell and Kevin Beattie loaded
Their ammunition and fired
5-1 in the end, sweet as a sherbet
And Englishmen and women
Flabbergasted but thrilled
At the hilarity and humiliation
Tomorrow England and Scotland
We can hardly wait again.

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The Lost Final! Scotland – Champions of Europe 1982

In Finland came young Scots to play
Van Basten’s Dutch they’d slay
Nevin and Mackay thick in the play
Fused by Maestro Paul McStay

Albania 3-0 the first game score
Turkey next shown the door
Dutch sent home with a score draw
Poland by two in the last four

Game by game the boys did grow
With the Czechs a final show
Roxburgh and Smith drew the bow
To plot a winning trail to Glasgow

Westwater, Livingstone, the dugout
McGivern in with a shout
Dobbin though an injury doubt
McInally suspended from the bout

Rae, Beaumont, Dick… Mackay first drew
Rice… Nevin danced through for two
Rennie, Bowman, McGinnis, McStay the glue
It’s Philliben for the crew in Blue

number7
© emdad rahman

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New Year Scotland ~ Pools Reminders

Ah! Bonny Scotland
You’ll take the High Road
And I’ll take the low
Family Hogmany
Parties
In debonair Dumfries
Happy New Year
To Scottish football
But above all to those
At the sadly lower
End of the football
Pools coupon
Halcyon days
When James Alexander
Gordon uttered the lyrical
Prose of East Fife five
Forfar four, or
Cowdenbeath and Morton
Crossed swords with Stranraer
Or Falkirk, even Queens Park
In the palace of grand
Halls,
Stately surrounds
Images of old and new
Dripping with the
Gilt decor of Hampden
The international playground
Where folks wearing thistle
And kilts respected their folklore
While men with
Tartan kilts bellowed
Seamless renditions of
ditties from the days of
Yesteryear
But now no longer but
Bannockburn and Culloden
With their ageless
Full throated roars of the land
Of Scotland the Brave
Of haggis and whisky
Rejoicing on the lochs
and glens of heather
Clad. Loch Lomond
Where Rabbie Burns
Poured out his poetic
reflections and reminiscences
From way back yonder
And then Clyde met
Dumbarton on New Year’s
Day how convenient
And then the sainted
Jock Stein once guided
His Celtic to garlanded
Highs of League championships
And Rangers with John Greig
Valiantly challenged the status quo
With Jock Wallace and a young
Sir Alex Ferguson
If only we’d known then
What we now know
Fergie’s stunning United.
But then
The Old Firm Derby
The fires of antagonism
Celtic and Rangers once
With a seeming duopoly
On the Scottish League
But way back in 1967
Celtic with wee Jimmy
Johnstone, feet of sweet
Dexterity, jinking and dinking
Bobby Murdoch and Tommy
Gemmell, entranced us spellbound
With dainty decorations
Before the coronation
Of the European Cup
In the grateful trophy cabinet
And Parkhead
Knew life would never be
The same because they
Were British pioneers
But down Dumfries
Where my lovely wife
And I toasted the New
Year.
It was simple and heartfelt
Queen of the South and
Dumfries are idyllic and
Compatible souls
At the end of the Pools
Coupon
But we’ll think of them
When the final skirl of
Bagpipes lifts our hearts
To a swollen full
We’ll drink to them all.

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