Football Poets

Happy Birthday Match of the Day

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Happy Birthday Match of the Day
60 years old today, hey
And there we were thinking
That you were only 59
Where have the years
And decades gone
Since you arrived in
The world of
Harold Wilson’s
White Heat of Technology?
Swinging London
Possibilities and
Potentialities
Everything had life
Colourful vibrancy
London’s finest feelings
Everything rocked
Everybody danced
In Trafalgar Square
Fountains of any age
When Bobby and Nobby
Brought home the 1966 World Cup
To our doorstep, our village
Our city, the sprawling, stretching
Metropolis and then nationwide
Then, suddenly as if by magic
Match of the Day
Arrived, a bonny, bouncing baby
Healthy, screaming with joy
On that distant day, Kenneth Wolstenholme
From a fledgling BBC 2
Also in its infancy
Made that momentous introduction
Welcome to Beatleville
She loves you, yeah yeah
We came to idolise and worship
Match of the Day
Every Saturday
Initially at tea time
Just as dad threw his cap,
Scarf and rosette
Onto the rosewood dining table
Pools coupon tucked away
Discreetly but excitedly
Dad loosened his braces
Dug ravenously into his
Egg and chips feast
Match of the Day
He cried as if just
Promoted at work
With just a couple of shillings
More in his wage packet
Dad just had to be home
For black and white
Highlights of the big matches
Little cameos and snapshots
Of Saturday’s sweetest
Fragrances, burgers all around
On heaving, sweating terraces
Put the kettle on love,
It’ll be on shortly
Football as you’ve never seen it before
Football on the telly,
Said the doting husband
To his shocked wife
Not again she groans
With doleful despair
But it’s Match of the Day
From Anfield
Liverpool against Arsenal
Pass the ketchup, love
Before the opening credits
Of men in thick raincoats
Women with hair curlers
Large gatherings of football’s
Working class solidarity
Men with chiselled faces
Straight from the factory
Milling around Victorian turnstiles
Bobble hats perched strategically
On perfectly combed hair
Some in workaday suits, shirts
And ties
Must look good for
Match of the Day
Football from Highbury,
White Hart Lane, Anfield,
Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge
When Chopper Harris was but a boy
Giles, Lorimer,
Tambling, Venables,
Law, Best and Charlton
United’s Holy Trinity
White, Dyson and, Peter Thompson
On his debut Match of the Day,
Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt
All par excellence
Football’s master crafstmen
In 1964, it was a revelation
A novelty, rather like
That treasured
Porcelain ornament
On our mantelpiece
But to this day
It still chants
That lovely old signature tune
In our head
That refuses to go away
Firstly reminiscent of
A wartime ditty
From our local brass band
But now associated
In the mind’s eye
With Jimmy Hill’s face
And a thousand cardboard
Cut out images
More extended highlights
Of the game’s spectacular
Moments to digest and drink in
First the late and deeply missed
John Motson, who just adored
The factual and obvious
Barry Davies, perfectly eloquent
Short, succinct, economical
With every word, sentences
Weighed carefully and lovingly
Jimmy Hill presiding like
A Roman emperor
Beard bristling with wisdom
Today Match of the Day
It’s your 6Oth birthday
Don’t forget the candles and cake
The drinks are on us
Saturday nights
Would never seem
The same, without you.

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