Football Poets

Germany again

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Germany again

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 It was always Germany
Following us, haunting us
Either our nemesis or
Just bold, visible,
In front of us, stalking
Our corridors
A pain, impediment,
Just a confounded nuisance
If it wasn’t 1966 and Sir Geoff
Four years later it was the West
Germans again
When Bobby was arrested
For pinching jewellery
And Sir Alf had a rush of blood
To the head and mind
In the tropical, baking heat
Of Mexico City
Then two years later
The fated evening at Wembley
When the West Germans ripped
Opened their birthday presents
While Gunter Netzer and the
Kaiser Beckenbauer reigned
In perfect football monarchy
In the Euro carnival where
England’s world was turned
Upside down on its head
England beaten this time
At Wembley by the West German
Advance on all fronts
Yet last night at Wembley
A six- goal humdinger
To satisfy the connoisseurs
The puritans and moralists
The ones who thrive on goals
In whatever form, shape and design
But England still relegated,
Demoted to the mediocre classes
While the Germans exact
A morsel of revenge
For Euro 2020
Crumbs of comfort
Leave the crusts in
The bread bin
We’ll eat those later
The Germans draw first blood
Through City’s Gundogan’s penalty
Oh no, Not another night like the
One in 1972
Then Chelsea’s Havertz
Adds salt to England’s
Festering wound
Double your money
Germany
Game seems shot and gone
Hurtling towards the empty
Wilderness among a forest
Of desolate English shirts
But then Luke Shaw
He it was who opened the
Scoring in the Italy Euro
2020 Final
Dragged his countrymen
Back onto flagging feet
This is the point
The height of excitement
Of bathos and pathos
Hold your breath
Mason Mount
Steers the ball magically
Home for parity
The second equaliser
How about that then?
Then our loyal citizen
Kane, Harry cracks
Home a penalty
With a decorative flourish
Game on, winner perhaps
But then the Germans,
Never beaten, undaunted,
Move their pawns, bishops
Kings and queens
Effortlessly through the
English defence
And Chelsea’s Harvitz
Thrusts his sword
With little in the way
Of medieval chivalry
Take that, England
3-3 in one of the great
International duels
Rivals but old allies
Friends but the fires
Of antagonism still burn
English hospitality
German efficiency
Set in stone
It’s only a UEFA Nations League
Game.
Who cares?
Some of us wonder
England though still down
But far from out

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