Football Poets

Hammers chew up stickier Toffees

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Now here’s an ode to Everton
Perhaps a word or two of levity
Here’s a phrase of clarity
Yesterday was 1980 all over again
It seemed much longer than years
Of ten
When Lampard senior danced
We were simply entranced
The dance of all dances at Elland Road
When full backs were allowed the luxury
Of the overload
Around that symbolic corner flag
Where the Upton Park wag
Giggled at diving headers
We’ll drink joyfully at the Feathers
Saw the luminous light of the
Legendary night of the FA Cup semi final
Wine for all
Of April boozy bacchanalia
Our claret and blue regalia
Victorious through champagne
Clouds of joy,
We recognised the Everton ploy
And yet yesterday Lampard junior
May have been joshed and ridiculed
Just a miniscule
By Lampard senior
That’ll teach you for departing the
Claret and blue academy
Apparently
Still, he did have his halcyon days
Seemingly always
At Chelsea
Inarguable back to back
Premier League titles
When everything seemed so vital
Wine, song and Mourinho
Never slow to sneer into his beer
Some may call him the conceited one
But never Portuguese fun
Yet still he won
But yesterday Frank Junior
Was your London Stadium
Revenge attack for all those years of tears
Of loathing the Irons with your iron clad
Constitution, No more claret and blue jibes
Yesterday an absence of good vibes
My dear boy, a little respect for those who once
Nurtured you in the Upton Park nursery
On a modest bursary at the halls of Upton Park
Learning and yearning for trophies
When Di Canio once pinched the ball off
You in the nine goal thriller against Bradford
Many years ago, remember what goes
Around, comes around
Yesterday though West Ham immaculate
Almost as delectable as the Sunday roast
Raise a glass, a toast
With all the trimmings, chicken and stuffing
Nothing for the
Toffees in a sticky mess
But still blessed, West Ham though
Workmanlike and businesslike
But members of the blue collar union
Boiler suited, intensely conscientious
Never knowingly undercooked
Or overlooked
Just the right room temperature
On this stupendous adventure
Turn down the oven, auntie
The sprouts and Yorkshire pudding
Have to be just right
West Ham, for their part correct,
Pure, prim and puritanical
Lovely service vicar
West Ham observe the Sunday
Psalms of late football season
Resonance and they did
Aaron Cresswell curls a free
Kick beauty that assumed a mind
Of its own, a bending, curling parabola
The ball seemed destined to reach
A distant postcode but then flew
Past Jordan Pickford like a missile
Dipped in sweet marzipan, a goal
Suited for the artists quarter in
Piccadilly many years ago
More Monet and the Montparnasse
Than East End brush, paint, ink and
Almost aerodynamic, perfection in
Poetic form but we of the claret and
Blue expect our fortnightly menu
Of Wordsworth and Keats
But briefly Everton draw level
From Holgate, a shot to shock
The jittery nerves of the claret and
Blue assembly before Bowen
Certainly not Jim because we knew
What we could have won
Jarred, back in claret and blue
On the spot to tuck home winner
From Michal’s muscular surge
And shot
But Frank Lampard junior
Today was your nemesis
And this was the West Ham
Genesis of greater glories to
Come, on Thursday perhaps
When Lyon come calling
Surely not a shrug of Gallic indifference
French World Cup nonchalance will never do
The Hammers, once decorating the streets
Of Green Street and Barking Road
Get out the bunting and flags for all to see
It could be once again
Re-run the reel to reel tape, when
Festooned with fleet of feet were
Remarkably sweet
Cup Winners Cup triumph at Wembley
In 1965,
West Ham
This is your time, your moment
To create history in Stratford
Blow those April bubbles again
Everton, no show but
May escape the relegation
Trap door if only just again
But Frank, let’s be Frank
You pulled rank
Not your day

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