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Poems tagged ‘World Cup homage’

56 years ago today

joe morris

Saturday, July 30th, 2022

It was 56 years ago
Today and nothing since
England win their only
World Cup, to the day
When memories were children
But now lost in the mists
Of time, like an ancient
Crisp bag or bottle of pop
Like a mournful dirge
A sad and tear stained
Funeral, all of those
Rose coloured days
That day of significance
Weighty gravitas
July 30 1966
Victorious but left
Behind sorrowfully
In the slipstream of history
Just a footnote, passing mention
Of a fond recollection
Simply, that
Riotous celebration
In isolation
Burst balloons and
Flattened party hats
56 years of hurt,
Rejection, foolhardiness
Questions, a mountain
Of questions
No more theatre
Neither drama nor ecstasy
Falling flat like a 70 year
Old bottle of champers
A destitute nation
Grieving but not the end
Of the world
Burying gnarled hands
In grave despair
Nowhere to go
Nor comfort to cling to
A snapshot of
the 1960s
Reduced to a microcosm
A faint, flickering heartbeat
That throbbed powerfully
On one day, when Britain,
Longing for their day of fame
And celebrity were rewarded
For their patience since
The first infant cries of the
Jules Rimet World Cup when Uruguay
Passed the baton down
The generational line for
Brazil, Germany, Argentina,
Spain and Italy to claim
As their divine right
But it’s been 56 years
Since momentous echoes
Drifted regretfully down
The hallways, pavilions and
Corridors of our hopes
And dreams
Nothing but hapless
Managers and coaches
With lonely trudges towards
The exit door
What an empty, hollow vacuum
Drained of colour, fallow failure
Almost but not quite at times
But too tantalisingly close
And yet Bobby lifted the World
Cup at Wembley, chaired on the
Shoulders of Sir Geoff, Nobby,
Alan Ball, Sir Martin Peters,
Roger Hunt, Jack and Bobby Charlton
And then there were the haunting ghosts
Of 56 years ago, just over half a century
The shame and guilt overwhelming us
Like a storm tossed ocean
And yet why the post mortems
And probing inquests, the excuses
Lands of alibi, detailed critique
Analysing the obvious
The fact remains though
That Sir Geoff did score a hat-trick
And the Germans were lulled into
A false sense of security
Levelling the game with only
Seconds left and then extra
Time beckoned
Sir Alf, defiant to the end
Screeched out the beseeching cry
You’ve won it once
So do it again
When energy and desire
Seemed to be crumbling like
The Roman Empire
Where was Gibbon when
We needed him most
Then with the receding tides
Of a North London afternoon
Had faded off into some desolate
Wasteland
Bobby slowed the game
To his measured specifications
While Jack Charlton and Alan
Ball with the blond one from
Barking, so noble and regal
Pleaded with the claret and blue
Skipper to dump the ball into a far
Distant county, shire, town and village
Where none could retrieve the game
The Germans, frozen in movement
Blunted and dulled like a thousand
School pencils, nonplussed
Beaten on the day
England lift the Jules Rimet Cup
World champions at last
But destiny would have other plans
No more warriors or mud spattered
Heroes anymore, just the one
World Cup
Soul destroying
But we’ll always have
Qatar at the end of the
Year, more World Cup
Scripts, manuscripts,
Drafts, first chapters
Documentary proof
That Gareth Southgate
Could emulate the template
Of disbelieving Sir Alf
Who, upon the final whistle
56 years ago
Sat impassively as if
He’d lost a dearly beloved
Solemn, a phlegmatic figure
Framed in shock perhaps
For 1966 read 2022
It happened today
Historians have little time
Though for warm sentiment
Go out in the desert, Gareth
And do it again
In our lifetime
Thankyou for being
Here in the moment
In Southgate we trust

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Ken Aston- My primary school headmaster

joe morris

Monday, June 6th, 2022

It’s World Cup year
But this time at a
Time bizarrely close
To mince pie, turkey
And brussel sprout
Family gatherings
And bibulous booze
Festivities
The wine of the day
The lager of the afternoon
Sandwiches curling in
Meek acceptance of their fate
It was never too late for sleep
Dad and uncle deep in the land
Of nod, that merry band who now
Dream the dream, snoring, contented
With their station in life
Amid the fork and knife
But some of us remember
Our Ken. Ken Aston
A footballing man in
Lung, heart, soul
Every fibre of his being
Always pleading for order
Ken Aston was the World
Cup referee, who rose
Above the chaos and consternation
When there was no need for complication
A towering gentleman through
And through,
Never blue
Mr Aston for this
Football poet was our
School headmaster
Never a newscaster
Presiding over Newbury Park
Not once did he bark. He was our
Primary school beacon of authority
A powerhouse of seniority
And yet when the pressure almost
Reached boiling point
And the world became a demon
Ken Aston stood apart
From the intolerable burden
A wonderful human being
The man in black and the middle
A strenuous chore when managers
And players became a bore
He was unquestionably the man
In charge.
When Rattin threw his toys out of the
Pram and Argentina were full of flim
Flam.
Our Ken Aston became the official
For this was never beneficial
To the health of the 1966 World Cup
Rattin ordered off for an early bath
When tensions exploded onto another path
And then Sir Alf’s blue bloods
Did indeed win, above the floods
Of sweat, Bobby Moore’s young
Lions wet behind the ears
Above the purgatory and tears
But victorious and only once
Sadly.
Lest we forget four years before
In Santiago, Chile and Italy
Went to war
In the authentic Battle of
Santiago.
That day Ken Aston
Cut through the bureaucratic
Mumbo jumbo and took no
Prisoners, a World Cup referee
Supreme, who’d taken enough
The rough and the tough
Stern and unyielding,
The man in the middle
Charged over towards
Violent and combustible
South America, Chile
Frozen in time, fuming,
Now overheating, fists
Flying, threatening blue
Murder with tempers of Latin
Intent while the blue of Italy
Fought fire with fire
But never in the mire
My headmaster though intervened
In the nick of time
Game stopped, match over
Tall with splendid diplomacy
Then with the raucous cheers
In his ears and the players had
Left the field and the managers
Had expressed too far
You suddenly discovered that
the World Cup referee
Had been comfortably ensconced
In the school hall, away from the chants
From football’s joyous rants on terraces
Ablaze with the fiery eruptions of hate
Never too late for vulgar outpourings
The outrageous scoldings
But hey who cared
Because Ken Aston
Was Newbury Park’s primary
School finest, gleaming with
Integrity, modesty at times
In all climes
He was the one who set up our lunchtime
Chess club, so caring and sensitive to
Parents and children alike, listening and
Understanding, like the Sunday vicar
Above the noisy bicker
And the jolly, comforting bike
Always charming over and over again
Over heather and glen
At school assemblies before yellowing
Hymn chants he smiled radiantly before
You certainly knew the score
He would never deplore
Thankyou Ken Aston
Our headmaster from Ilford
Certainly not from Guildford
Born in Colchester but he
He must have known Manchester
City and then United
When Sir Matt Busby led
His Sixties stars to victory
In the 1963 Cup Final
Against Leicester
Distinguished World Cup referee
Oh what glee
Mr Aston you were the best
Commanding over the rest

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World Cup draw

joe morris

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

So it’s our cousins from across the pond
In World Cup combat
Uncle Sam, New York, New York,
LA, across wide expanses of freeway
Burger joints galore
It’s America in November
For the gentleman whose
Waistcoat caught the masculine imagination
England against USA in the middle of oil rich
Deserts
Where once Peter O’ Toole presided
Over wind blown, huge acres of sand in
Celluloid fantasies on the silver screen
Gareth Southgate in the Wild West
Surely geographically wrong
Southgate in Saudi Arabia
It almost sounds like the adventure
TE Lawrence never completed
England also meet Iran
Where the wicked Ayatollah
Once brought blood, death
Callousness, the dastardly
Deeds of a dictator’s savage
Nightmares to a country that
Never had any say, helpless victims
Of violent circumstance, ripping
Through and tearing up the rule books
Please peace prevail above mayhem
You then thought of the punctured heart
Of Ally Macleod when Scotland had
Nothing but feebleness and capitulation
In 1978 World Cup demoralised days
Burying his ashen face in a sackcloth of ashes
A pitiful draw in Argentina, Scotland
Slinking off the world stage and Peruvian
Wind chimes overwhelmed the Tartan roar
Cubillas thunderous free kick, the crucial blow
So England are given the kindest or allegedly
Groups, it could have been far worse
Spain and Germany meeting in classic
A manifestation of epic minds
Football’s mightiest imaginations
England then could meet their
Home Counties allies, Scotland again, possibly
The fire and brimstone of the Welsh dragons
Or deeply emotionally, sensitively, Ukraine
A World Cup in winter awaits its Saudi
Hosts, the Canadian maple leaf, the Far
East, mysterious tales of contests yet
To be told, the Middle East biblical
Footballing scriptures in modern
Day incarnations
Europe and more global
Sweetest of confections
England, Gareth Southgate
World Cup questions
And positive outcomes
We must hope
56 years of wilderness wanderings
England
Bring home that Jules
Rimet World Cup.

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