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Christmas and Boxing Day

joe morris

Monday, December 26th, 2022

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Twas Christmas Day in the workhouse
Or maybe not
And Boxing Day in the
Kosher jam doughnut factory
For Chanukah
Last candles of uplifting light
And yet on Christmas Day
When once the trains ran
And football flowed
Like mulled wine with
A stimulating Bailey’s on the go
There would be no slow
An abundance of snow instead
Get out of bed and yet
Carpets of it by our snug
Fireplace, when freezing
But still beautiful
How we needed that hug among
Family and friends, then
There was quite melodramatically
Football on Boxing Day
Now there’s an aching sore
How we craved for more
Goals and goals
Boy, did we get them
In cascades, raging currents,
Go easy with the raisins and currants
Whirlpools, tempestuous typhoons
Oh what defensive buffoons
Overflowing dams by festive
Estuaries when by the East End
Dockyards, everything turned to ice
Upton Park bathing in mud
Pockmarked with divots
West Ham in 1963
A horrific mess
Please less and yet
Leaking eight goals
Rather like the kitchen sieve
Where uncle Tom once downed
Several eggnogs and festive
whiskies galore
Some more he cried
Woe betide
But then you wondered
At the excessive intoxication
That must have passed
Through the lips
Of the East End revellers
Since Blackburn Rovers
Were in no mood for leniency
Goals flooding in far too easily
Twas 8-2 to Rovers
Game done and dusted by half time
Mine’s a lager and lime
West Ham staggering and reeling
without so much as a feeling
McEvoy and Brian Douglas
Greedily gourmandising on the
The meaty morsels of the day
East End hospitality
Such effusive generosity
But this was the day of 66
Goals not the World Cup
Since that was still
Three years away
From that monumental day
Tonight though
Christmas will bring us
Jesus and Gabriel
At the Emirates
Oh woe such biblical footnotes
Lost at sea in forlorn sailing boats
West Ham no hope and Bob Hope
It could be a long night for
The happy Hammers you fear
How can we possibly bear
The rousing reds of the Gunners
Bombarding claret and blue
With astonishing runners
Be gentle with London Stadium
Nerves and hearts
No arts and crafts
Tonight, move
Into 2023
Promptly now
Sooner rather than later
Since relegation bells
May toll
Surely not
Come on you Irons

Notes

West Ham and Boxing Day, once beaten by Blackburn Rovers 8-2 in 1963.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/christmas-and-boxing-day/