Poems tagged ‘Spurs’
Terry Venable – The Rock The Fuse RIP
on heady days stood in the Shed
for six sweet years you were
imperious and smiling
as we tore out our hair
when I was young on Saturdays
I’d be there win our lose
and you stood firm composed and sure
in our old Sixties Blues
you played five hundred times for us
and wore the shirt with pride
with your mate Greavesie there up front
in that old Chelsea side
with Jim on fire we’d bang them in
but always seemed to be
completely un-predictable
and often all at sea
but outside that old office
all covered in ivy
inside my book of autographs
you signed your name for me
and long before the El Tel days
you were the rock the fuse
and you stood firm composed and sure
in our old Sixties Blues
That Photo of Jimmy Greaves
It captures him to a T. Look: eyes locked on the ball,
His face a mask of grim determination, he’s
Opening up like a cheetah chasing a springbok,
Showing the defender a clean pair of heels,
Who, lunging in, shows a studded sole in return.
It will gash his shin and need fourteen stitches.
It’s England v France at Wembley in July 1966.
They’re hosting the eighth World Cup competition.
Geoff Hurst will take his place and grab his chance.
Alf Ramsey will decide not to change a winning team.
He will score a hat-trick in the final versus West Germany,
Become an English hero and a knight of the realm in 1998.
Jimmy will finally collect an MBE in 2021.
What a player he was! We were watching Match of The Day
On the BBC. It must have been in the late 60s,
Because the picture was still fuzzy black-and-white.
Spurs had a free kick just outside the penalty area.
And twenty-one wild emotions were facing off
Over the defensive wall. “Come on, ref! Spurs players
Are muscling in!” “Their wall isn’t ten yards away!”
Only one man heard the referee’s whistle in the melee.
He stepped up with cerebral serenity from a short run
And placed the ball in the corner of the net,
While the goalkeeper was still shouting the odds.
It was his intellect that set Jimmy Greaves apart.
But in the seventies his decline began.
He started to drink. And the more he drank
The lower he sank. Was a snowball of regret,
Resentment and self-doubt rolling around and
Growing in his mind? Did he wonder why Fate
Stole his chance to be England’s World Cup hero?
Would they even have won with him in the team?
Were the snow clouds already louring as he sat out the final,
Suited in the July heat? Was his face ashen at the end amid
The ecstasy on the bench at the horror of his extinct dream
As the eleven men in red and white achieved immortality?
There was Nobby Stiles’s jig and Bobby Charlton’s tears.
Bobby Moore, chaired by the team, raising the Jules Rimet trophy
In his right hand. While the other squad members would only make
It into the footnotes of football history and the odd pub quiz.
Ten years later I would stand on the terrace at Fulham F.C. for a
Testimonial match. On the team sheet were many players well
Past their prime. One of them was Jimmy Greaves. His hair was
Thinner but longer. He had a droopy moustache and sunken eyes.
But neither time nor alcohol had ravaged that great football brain.
With one touch he scored the greatest goal I have ever seen.
As of old he turned and ran back up the field for the restart.
There may have been a brief smile and a wave. But that was it.
He beat the booze and found fame as the funny half of
Saint and Greavesie On TV. Always deadly serious on the pitch,
His on-screen barrow boy, cheeky chappie charm served him well.
Until football moved up-market. But as much as I enjoyed it,
It still grated on me. His erstwhile skill merited better tokens than
One-liners and a Spitting Image puppet Saying, “It’s a funny old game.”
It deserved to be preserved in joyous aspic in red and white on sweeping
Sward. With The Boys of 1966. At Wembley. But it wasn’t meant to be.
I Wonder. Did I Ever Tell Yer…
Knew this fella, knew a fella
Old lags in The Boob together
For a little bit a TDA, while absolutely stocious drunk?
Every Saturday after-noon, in their cell
They joshed each other merry hell
Tuned in to Five-Live, lounging on her Madge’s bunk.
“Kev, we didn’t hardly ever ruck
Life in our Dingly? Sweet as hazel-nut
Till in The Derby, Tottnem miss a sitter
The sarcastic comments, guy lets fly
Set-off a ginormous hue n cry
Turning Spurs fans on our landing proper bitter.
Blimey, if only I tumbled him a Gooner
Would a dropped the loser sooner
T’was him what caused me stuck there in The Boob
Anyways, I cheer on Spurs, despite a slight conundrum,
With, “There’s only one team in North West London”,
Coz as you know, I’m through n through a Blue like you”.
“So, what landed the pair of you in The Boob?”,
“Well, we’re “Over the water” having had a lube
Tube Station shut, can’t hail a sherbet dab
We stagger in a South Westerly destination
Seeking a night bus to Fulham Broadway Station
A little worse for wear, due to shandy’s had.
Anyways, near The Crystal Palace ground
You’ll never guess what us two found?
An eerie garage rammed with resting double-deckers”,
“Right, we’ll soon be good to go to Fulham Broadway
Hi-jack one of these, we’re right as day
Just see me out son, that done, I’ll pull up and get yer”.
“Kev, so I see him out to the main road
Where I quickly have it on my toes
And wait for him to pick me up, in the dead a night
But, the hi-jacked double-d flies by
Him waving at me (I thinks) bye-bye
Perturbed, I chase the bus to catch it at the lights.
Banging on the passenger door
Kev, you should have heard me roar?
Like a Banshee, proper vexed at my accomplice
“Let me on, you no good so n so”,
I’m screaming at this hi-jacker, I hardly know
His reply, “Can’t you read the sign son…Out of Service?”.
“Anyways, I prise open the emergency door
Just as the long arm of local law
Come blue lights flashing, roaring round a hairpin bend
Another ten minutes I swear to you Kev?
That Gooner might have been brown bread
Eejit, displaying, Out of Service, instead of…The Worlds End”.
It All Comes Out in the Wash
Two (European Super) Premier League
clubs, whose names chime with greed,
contest the (Football League, Milk,
Littlewoods Challenge, Rumbelows,
Coca-Cola, Worthington, Carling,
Capital One, EFL) Carabao Cup Final
on a Sunday at 4.30 in a stadium branded
‘Wembley connected by EE’.
One club is so pleased they’ve just sacked
their manager, while the other is simply
happy to be ‘sportswashing’ the U.A.E.
Derby Day Fanter.
Touching seventy, wizened, livid as sin
Nicotine dentures, knotted scarf, curlers in
By the time, a breath-gasping interval came
Down,“The Lane”, midst an exasperating game
She’d hordes a South West Londoners querying…
Our legitimacy, at birth, in the main?
On…Form.
“Come on Micky, three to one?”,
“Kev, the bet is evens, son
You’ll win away at Spurs tonight, you always do
Bleating German, hardly through the door,
Leave me brassic, he gets top four
Still, midst your boss-eyed form, I nicked a bob or two”.
“Oh, come on Micky, three to one?”,
“Do that, I’ll be in the work-house son
I’ve a vision, and three kids, to feed indoors
Listen Kev, tell you what I’ll do, seeing as it’s you
Lay you an absolutely blinding nine to two,
Over at Spurs tonight, you get a pen, Jorgino scores?”.
“Okay Micky, fifteen sov’s at nine to two?
Plus…a score at threes, us winning, if I do?”,
“Okay, okay, you’re on, enough already, you’re proper getting on my wick.
I’m laying the German geezer, only stays twelve months,
Marina wields the axe, someone pushes him, or he jumps?
He’s got previous, for falling out with them, like you, trying to take the Mick”.
Peace.
Stay sage. Bode well.
Epiphany in Park Lane.
En route to Kensal Rise, via Stamford Bridge,
At behest of the quare one, and Sean’s kids
His hearse purred to a halt at The Bovril Gate
We clambered out, sparked a pensive smoke
Reminiscing a, you had to have been there, sepia joke,
Blinding times, shared in The Shed with our old mate.
Declan produced a silver flask
Raised, as a roaring double decker passed,
His toast to absent friends, drowned in its wake
Couple over on a pilgrimage from Japan
Shared our china’s grief on Instagram
Quicker than a spieling tout moves on the make.
In the hired jam-jar, Van The Man
Touched our hearts as well he can
Gliding through a doleful, Carrickfergus
The quare one looked across at me
Pulling away from Sean’s beloved CFC
To softly sing in tearful poignant verse.
A stark and eerie Fulham Road
Glistening pavements we had strode
Queuing up all night for tickets in the rain
Seemed to know of Sean’s demise
Set of temporary traffic lights
Stayed steadfast on Go, and didn’t change.
Our jam-jar passed South Ken
Declan’s flask appeared again
A sombre mood prevailed outside The V&A
Stopping opposite Harrods in a jam
Celery and blue carnations close at hand
Passer’s by, bowed heads, or stared at us amazed.
Through howling wind, incessant rain
We aquaplaned Park Lane, Park Lane!
Which reminds me? Strewth! I’ve nothing else to say
Sorry…I can’t continue this tale of abject woe
After gleefully witnessing the antics of Mourinho
Alongside, his teams confusing lack-lustre display.
See…our china, Sean, might be brown bread
But as he often said, stood in The Shed,
“Ain’t nothing matters…long as we do well at Spurs away”.
Peace.
Stay sage. Bode well.
Malignant Cancer.
Straight up I expected to be behind
When I pressed Red Button on T.V
Of late our defence, not to be unkind
Seems as resolute as a sieve.
Listening to JJ in the Five Live studio
Passing comment on the game
I caught a vocal South West London braggadocio
Prevalent in the back-ground, down at White Hart Lane.
What with wrapping presents
Cleaning the oven, and brewing pots o tea
I didn’t catch the gist of JJ’s comments
On the incidents he could see.
Seeing we were two nil up
I composed a flippant text
Texted it to all me pals and those I Love
In the short verse coming next…
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way
Oh what fun, it is to win two nil at Spurs away.
Then…the malignant cancer in modern day society,
and I don’t give a toss for what the politicians say?
Quite rightly became the main talking point of football on T.V
During Sunday evenings Match of The Day.
Peace.
He’s Back Again, and… Down The Lane.
Well… I never saw that appointment in North London coming?
Here in the capitals football one usually does?
Mourinho seemed destined for The Arse (and let’s face it…slumming!)
In the midst of a media maelstrom he loves.
Till Daniel Levy right nicked a march on The Arse
To get Jose strutting his stuff down The Lane
Rumour has it, when Saturday comes, after collecting his cards
Poch will be fast a kip at The Emptiness, during their game?
It’s the last chance saloon for Mourinho
Spurs are near brassic, tis fact
A blinding new stadium, senior pro’s all itching to go
Ain’t the usual cards, he finds…in a welcoming pack.
Still…it’s takes the mind off a Brexit
A right royal scandal, and a general election
An ordinary season thus far, has by one geezer’s exit,
Suddenly…been given an adrenalin injection.
Mourinho, let’s face it, ain’t everyone’s cup of rosy
Often at times he can do in yer nut
But most fans I talk to, can’t help but agree…
His appointment guarantee’s…this season is back on the up.
It goes without saying…it could all go Pete Tong
As it occasionally did with yer man in the past
Yet Spurs fans, down in their cups, over in North London
Might yet laud Daniel Levy…for nicking a march on The Arse.
Peace.
Red Devils rock the draw
Man Utd 1-1 Liverpool
Soon as this game got up to speed
Rashford gives United the lead
77,000 scream from wide and far
Mane denied by VAR
Ruled out for a handball
In the past there’d be a brawl
But before you could say Glazer
It’s Lallana’s late equaliser
20 10 19
number7
© emdad rahman
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joe morris
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kevin halls
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Latest Comments
13th September 2024 at 6:14 pm
Welcome to Football Poets Beth
Great evocative poem Beth….
More please !
Haiku always welcome.
Hope we (FGR) get to play you again soon
Best
Crispin
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26th July 2024 at 6:25 pm
Great poem Mike Bartram. Eddie was a legend, affectionately known in Liverpool as, “the first hooligan.” Even the hoolies were well dressed in those days. The amazing thing was he was only 26 when that picture was taken. He’d played for Everton youth team and was well known to the players. He never got arrested. They threw him out and he climbed back in, just in time for Derek Temples winner.
I used the picture of him being tackled to the ground on the front cover of my book, “Once Upon a rhyme in Football.” It’s worth looking on youtube and finding the re-enactment of the Wembley scene. Frank Skinner and Baddiel went around to Eddies home in the 1990’s and acted it out on the green outside. It’s hilarious, especially all the effort they put in to get Eddie sober enough to shoot the scene.
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10th July 2024 at 6:07 pm
Hi Crispin,
I don’t know if you’ve see the picture in social media today…
a picture of a teenage Lionel Messi cradling a baby in Africa as part of a photoshoot…. the family had won a lottery to have their baby pictured with him….
the photographer has just revealed that the baby is actually in fact Lamine Yamal!!!!
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26th May 2024 at 2:30 pm
Hi Denys…
Re Man City:
OK it was 20 years ago but Criag Wilson did write this and a few others on them back in 04/05.
BTW I’m more Forest Green Rover since 2014 (and Chelsea) these days . I drum and am a standing season ticket holder .
Best
Crispin
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29th April 2024 at 2:47 pm
Hi Denys,
Yes Richard Williams you’re a brilliant wordsmith, my friend. When I first saw your football poetry I thought it was the superb Guardian sports and music writer. I once had the honour of sitting next to Richard Williams while at the Independent on the sports desk. He writes about music and sport with immense knowledge and authority. I’ve read a couple of Richard’s books recently. Great writer rather like you Richard Williams the Pompey fan. Congratulations on promotion.
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28th April 2024 at 5:59 pm
Thanks Denys. Yes your replay poem was superb.
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26th April 2024 at 4:46 pm
Nice work, Joe. You were quick off the mark with that! Good one from Richard Williams too I see.
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25th April 2024 at 7:33 pm
Hi Denys,
Thanks mate. I’ll do it now.
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25th April 2024 at 1:56 pm
Thanks Joe,
you might like to write a poem yourself on the same subject…
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23rd April 2024 at 4:03 pm
Hi Denys
With you all the way on the abolition of FA Cup replays. What are they doing to the game?
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