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Poems tagged ‘Women's Football’

Spain Triumph ~ WWC23

Crispin Thomas

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

so near yet so far
what a tournament it’s been
Spain a class above

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Spain reign on the plains

joe morris

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Oh girls how close you came
To emulating the men of
57 years ago
But women of the world
Step forward
Glowing with pride
With a fresh breath of Prosecco
In the air
To show we cared
It was destined to be England
But then fate changed its mind
As it normally does
Still, onwards and upwards
In celebration of how far
You’ve come
Still in the bodegas of Seville
And the financial heartbeat of Madrid
To the alluring charms of Benidorm,
And tourist magnets of the Costas
Thriving industries
Let’s charge our glasses
Since Millie, Lucy, Georgia,
And the inimitable lady by
The name of Russo
Striking when the iron
Was indeed hot
Jess, darting, jinking, overlapping
In relentless circles
Feminine wiles and styles
Obvious intuition
But we knew that anyway
Sadly though last night
Their cups of human kindness
And decency to all who made
This World Cup possible
Were sadly empty
Like a dusty chest of drawers
With documents yellow, fraying
And old
But ladies this is not the end
Of the fairy story
Your chapters have been our
Reasons for believing in you
Time for new frontiers
Journeys into the unknown
Who knows
Maybe the men and women
Will meet again
On the same day and time
With the Jules Rimet trophy
Trembling with excitement
In eager hands
World Cup trophies to flaunt
Simultaneously
A joyous coincidence
Wondrous days
For ever
Over and over again

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WWC23~The Gold

Gacina Bozidar

Friday, August 18th, 2023

The Gold is near
Someone will be the winner
“The Ladies don’t fear” I sing

Congratulations to the Lionesses

The Gold is near
Someone wil be the winner
The Ladies don’t fear

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Lionesses Underwhelm haiku~WWC’23

Crispin Thomas

Monday, July 24th, 2023

rusty or off form?

Lionesses underwhelm

Haiti look the biz ~

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Winter Dreams in Sydney ~ WWC ’23

Crispin Thomas

Friday, July 21st, 2023

so this is it – morning in July here
Winter in Sydney now… nine hours ahead
a celebration of the Women’s Game
a record crowd all wrapped in scarves
a waiting stadium excited for the night
what’s not to love?

I remember as a child in London in mid-Summer
just like today I’d be out in the garden with a trowel
five or six years old maybe
convinced by my grandmother sat on the wooden bench
that I could a dig a hole to Australia..
and I tried and tried until a friend told me it was impossible
early dreams dashed

I wonder what those brave women thought
playing football together in breaks at munitions factories
during and just after World War One
dreaming of a future in the game
Lily Parr was one of them – feisty and fiery – a fag on her lip
turning out in front of massive curious crowds
for Dick Kerr’s Ladies while the blokes were at the front

their hopes and dreams just like mine
suddenly wiped out
the women’s game banned for fifty years in’21
by a sexist dumb FA who ‘claimed it’ un-safe
and a ‘potential’ danger to childbirth
the mind boggles

but here we are a century on
as the Matildas take on Ireland
different dreams for us and them
who will emerge victorious?
how far have we come?
it’s been a battle a long long journey
and still so much to do

but this is it – morning in July here
Winter in Sydney now… nine hours ahead
a celebration of the Women’s Game
a record crowd all wrapped in scarves
a waiting stadium excited for the night
what’s not to love?

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The ladies are here

joe morris

Friday, July 21st, 2023

Not long to go now
Tomorrow the Lionesses
Gather their pride together
Suitably leonine
Fiercely surveying
The Aussie outback
Where the koala and wombat
Seek sanctuary
From the England girls
With World Cup aspirations
The Lionesses, swishing
Predatory tails
Hungry for meat
Tomorrow Haiti
Now there’s a first
The nation who gave
Us the heroic icon
73 years ago
Sending convulsive,
Shock waves
Through English hearths
And homely comforts
When Joe Gaetjens
Born into the comforting
Arms of Haitian parenthood
Sent tremors through the
World Cup global family
His goal left Blighty
Speechless and dumbfounded
Billy Wright’s buccaneers
England caught off guard
America beat the English
At their own game
With honourable intentions
None of us had ever imagined
Rub astonished eyes
The totally unexpected
A brutal punch to the solar
Plexus, stomach reeling with
The raw blow of a World Cup
Giant killing
So tomorrow revenge
Should be sweet as life
The ladies hunting retribution
For unforgivable misdemeanours
Trespassing on the territory
Of England’s glorious glory
Normal service resumed surely
Mary Earps protecting the England goal
Milly Bright, Alex Greenwood, Esme Morgan
And Jesse Morgan providing backbone, the
Strongest spine, pillars of vertebrae
Immovable as the thousand year old beech tree
Then in the engine room Laura Coombs,
Jordan Nobbs, Georgia Stanway
Stoking fires, heaving mighty
Shovel loads of coal into
Midfield life and vibrant activity
And of course
Rachel Daly, Lauren Hemp,
Chloe Kelly and Bethany England
Blessed with the Midas finishing touch
So it’s time for girl power
Haiti beautifully exotic
But for English this is your year
Your time
Time to redress the balance
For the men’s greatest day
In 1966 when the world stopped
On its axis and Sir Alf’s hardy
And doughty warriors
Transformed the sporting landscape
Forever more but hopefully
Once again now
Wind the clock forward
To the present day
57 years later
Girls demonstrate
This feasibility study
We can do it
We know we can do it
Not the enduring luxuries
Of Wembley
But the other side of the
World where once Kylie and
Jason plighted their troth
In neighbourly alliances
Soft bars of soap operas
And Dame Edna smashed
Down satirical boundaries
Everything in the world of Oz
Will bring us football wizards
Goals galore
Girls you must be able
To hear the bugles of fate
Calling
A flying start from the blocks
World Cup victory
Savoured with just the
Right flavours
Where English patriotism
Will reign on the plain
Of Perth, Dunedin, Melbourne,
Sydney and presumably Wellington
To boot
Oh waltz Matilda
To your hearts content
Fly the St George flag
Across the bronze hues
Of cornfields and farmlands
England expects
But Haiti first
Patience is a virtue
Lands of the possible
In Lionesses we trust

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Within The Women’s Game

Crispin Thomas

Saturday, July 15th, 2023

we used to be invisible
to some perhaps a joke
reserved for those whose daughters played
the rebels and the woke

banished for a hundred years
our game at last expands
but struggles on for backing
in many different lands
still seeking recognition
as fans and numbers soar
still needing better pitches
facilities and more
but now at last the penny drops
it’s time thast we provide
the opportunity for all
at home and far and wide

no longer now invisible
no longer classed as lame
the quality is there to see
within the Women’s Game

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Lionesses Roar As One

Crispin Thomas

Wednesday, July 13th, 2022

watching on in pride

Lionesses roar as one…

could this be their year?

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Lily Parr & The Dick Kerr Ladies Revisited

Crispin Thomas

Sunday, December 5th, 2021

if Lily Parr could be here now
you wonder what she’d say
as Chelsea took on Arsenal
on Wembley’s pitch today
and did our Lily realise
the breakthrough women made
their influence upon the game
with ev’ry match they played?
but looking back a hundred years
what did they feel that day
the FA banned the women’s game
and took their world away ?

but at that time young Lily Parr
was known across the land
and as the War raged on and on
the fans still crammed the stand
and crowds of fifty thousand
were more than common-place
they came in curiosity
but not to see her face
they flocked in awe to wonder at
young women in the war
and cries of “get ’em off love”
rang loud when they did score

for back in nineteen seventeen
they’d come from near and far
to see the Dick Kerr Ladies team
led by young Lily Parr
no softy touch or ‘bit of stuff’
a Woodbine on her lips
exceptional left footed skill
deceptive swerving hips
nine hundred goals in all she scored
for England and the girls
St Helen’s born she learned her trade
and stunned the football world

those Sundays when the pubs turned out
on streets and fields of stone
against those sturdy drunken lads
our Lily held her own
and in munitions factories
with pride they’d speak her name
an England captain well deserved
and icon for the game
and fans recall a moment when
they waited patiently
a cow-pat by the corner flag
caused much hilarity
but Lily took it in her stride
and in her face that day
of all who filled that Dick Kerr side
young Lily led the way

they flocked in awe to wonder then
so many years ago
to keep alive the game they loved
whilst war was raging so
for back in nineteen seventeen
they’d come from near and far
to see the Dick Kerr Ladies team
led by young Lily Parr

and if young Parr could be here now
you wonder what she’d say
as Chelsea took on Arsenal
on Wembley’s pitch today
and did she ever realise
The breakthrough women made
their influence upon the game
with ev’ry match they played?
but looking back a hundred years
what did they feel that day
the FA banned the women’s game
and took their world away ?

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Grass Roots

Carol Stewart

Thursday, July 8th, 2021

‘66, I missed it altogether
couldn’t see past my mother’s womb
although at some point in the second half
I attempted to

kick my way out

War and Peace on the floor, never mind
England’s glory repeated
in black and white clips after Play for Today
we rarely heard the end of how

Mum never found her place again.

Shoot for the moon, Dad told me in ‘74
when he got me a ball, goals made
from surplus netting, wooden canes
and hey there, Georgie geh’l,
watch where yer headin’

one strike and out of bounds

next door’s freshly watered mud-patch
clod-hopper boots and my sky-blue ball
hoed-out, it emerged
smutted, smeared
and through a straggle of weeds

the old man’s face

hole in his sweater the size of his green
furred-up mouth, head back, chortling,
So you think you can be the best?

Catch this!

Slow, quick, quick, quick, quick, slow
and through the air, a spinning globe,
a planet… Earth.

It slipped through my fingers.

Georgie, Georgie girl, reaching up
pinning posters to the wall
and just for a moment believing
she too had the world at her feet.

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/news/poem-tags/womens-football/