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Any F***ing Old Iron

Martyn Woodward

Monday, July 13th, 2020

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 2 Unfashionable underdogs
Kicking off in Clockhouse Way:
Forlorn, the Crittall iron gates
Where Athletic used to play.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 One man’s utopian vision,
Guardians of Braintree Town,
The forbidding small square boxes
Are crying foul, heading down.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 ‘The Iron’ will leave their stadium
And their soul for something new:
F*** off Cressing Road and history,
When the last Ref blows adieu.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 By soupman 13.09.14

Notes

Some notes: Braintree Town FC was formed from Crittall Athletic FC. The club’s ground and surrounding area was developed by the company Crittall Windows, a major employer who experimented by building just about the earliest modernist movement housing anywhere for their workers (the ‘small square boxes’), which are in varying states of upkeep. The ground was called ‘Cressing Road’ until it became ‘The Amlyn Stadium’. That was in 2014, when this poem was written. It may be called something quite different now. Clockhouse Way leads into the ground. The remnant 1920s Crittall iron gates are a reminder of what once was. They probably go unnoticed by most fans as they walk into the ground. The stadium move never happened but that’s not to say that The Iron won’t leave Cressing Road one day.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/after-the-match-2/