|

Football at Christmas always seemed too much.

joe morris

Thursday, December 16th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It always seemed too much
Of a good thing,
Unappetising, too heavy
After the mountainous
Helpings of turkey and sprouts
Just unpalatable
Particularly when your
Stomach felt like
The washing machine
You’d bought the day
Before
And yet there used
To be football on
Christmas Day and
The trains ran for
Free and then
In the winter of 1963
The old First Division
Developed indigestion
So grandma suggested
Rennies so we gathered
Around only to discover
That there were 66 of the
Best goals in the land
On Boxing Day, presents galore
Pampered we were
Honoured to be in the land
Of watefalls and cascades of
Goals, washing over our
Living rooms, a drunken
Stupor that left us delirious
With joy
Fulham score 10
Against Ipswich
Blackburn indulge
In East End feasts
Of cockles and whelks
At West Ham with
Eight of the best
Liverpool demolish
The Potteries of Stoke
6-1,
And for all the world
It all seems as if the
Beers and ales
Of that festive day
Had blended with
Mince pies, and
Goals were raining
Down from Biblical
Heavens and strikers
With boots that weighed
A ton were just involved
In a goal scoring infatuation
With nets fit to burst
And they did as if for fun
When Coronation Street
Was simply in childhood
And the streets echoed
To our game of football
Dribbling nonchalantly
Around lampposts
And then laughing at
The shots that landed
In distant shires
And counties of England’s
Green land
With an emphatic statement
Of youth and regardless
Of age and class
We kept playing on
Christmas Day
For everybody played
Football in festive moods
Tinsel on our Man Utd
Shirts, turkey leftovers
Hiding in the red of
Liverpool and Arsenal
Who cared about the
Supposed excesses of football
Over Christmas
When moderation
Seemed the last of
Our thoughts
So we rushed out
To the pavements
Where once again
Amid the thickening snow
We could be the Beckenbauer
Liberos of the future
Or Bobby in his imperious suit
But nobody worried about
Christmas over football
For it was our game
Forever more.

Notes

This is my poem about football over Christmas.

Tags:

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/football-at-christmas-always-seemed-too-much/