Football Poets

Erling Haaland

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Erling Haaland
The ultimate accolade
Recognised by his admiring
Peers, colleagues united
In mutual appreciation
PFA men’s players player
Of the year
Tungsten steel and thunder
In his centre forward’s boots
Manchester City’s inimitable one
A goal machine
Firing and sparking
On jet propelled heels
With electrifying speed
Goals like a million raindrops
Pouring down from tearful Manchester
Skies far from the limit
You can imagine Big Mal
Malcolm Allison puffing
Havana cigars, celebrating
The Norwegian Viking ransacking
The lands and penalty areas
Of old First Division havens
Joe Mercer and John Bond
Heartily giggling in remote
Hard bitten dug outs
What a find, a gem,
Haaland, a Norwegian nugget
A diamond for years to come
Never to lose his lustre
City fans besotted by their
Latest pin up boy
He’d have been idolised
At Anfield, Old Trafford,
Highbury and White Hart Lane
Haaland would have gorged on
Second and third helpings of
Goals, cracked and thumped home
Clinically, shamelessly
In the eternal mud of the 1970s
At least 40 or 50 from head and feet
Handsomely and exquisitely
Bouncing off Chopper Harris,
Dave Mackay, Norman Hunter’s shins
With effortless effrontery
How dare he?
Hurdling bloodthirsty tackles,
Shrugging off the red blooded
Savagery of the hard men
The men who stood for no nonsense
Murder in their eyes
But never in their heart
Then the flaxen blond Haaland
Scored again and again
A striker of peerless power
Prominent always on the score sheet
The centre forward defenders
Loathe and dread for 90 minutes
And then injury time that now
Seems to last for eternity
Until late night dinners beckon
Erling Haaland now striving to
Match his gold embossed predecessor
Aguero, a goal scorer from his cot
Goals by the gallons
Upon the final blast of the referee’s whistle
When City won their first Premier League
In modern times
And Manuel of Chile
Worked his mastery
From the first kiln of clay
Now though Erling Haaland
Accepts the bouquets of praise
With petals of approbation
Fluttering in the Etihad breeze
Haaland a phenomenon
From Pep’s encyclopaedic mind
Not so much a discovery
More of a birthday present
Celebrated like the Messiah
Goals for breakfast, lunch and tea
Players player of the year
The PFA acknowledges your charm
Offensive
Here and now
Your colleagues revere
Who you are, targets
Achieved and broken
Records
There is so much more to come
Perpetual petrol in his tank
Beware the City bolt of lightning
Striking 52 so far
We can only assume a century
Is in his insatiable hunger
Haaland, this boundless appetite
Glutton but not for punishment
A glorious gourmand
Who always eats his greens
Erling goals in his blood
Pumping and pulsing again

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