Football Poets

How we love football language

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Now here’s the story so far
Football’s baffling and head
Spinning ambiguities
The lack of clarity
The familiar adjectives
When transfer gossip
Reaches its loudest crescendo
The strange pronouns
The repetitive descriptions
For instance, wait for it
West Ham are closing in
On player A or B
Even C
Closing in on signings
Suggestions of
Stealthy movements
In the undergrowth
Approaching their prey
Sneaking covertly
With suspicion perhaps
Or possibly hunting down
Said player in captivity
Endangered species
Under threat of extinction
Ready to be caught and
Arrested, perhaps
Loitering with intent
In the neighbourhood
The hush hush
Clandestine operations
Of the July transfer window
Broja interested in move
To West Ham, then Chelsea
Change their mind once again
Broja has preferences
Irons in the fire
That’s appropriate
Broja from adorable Albania
Remain where you are
You’re going precisely nowhere
Then there are the advanced negotiations
That are so close to resolution
You can almost touch and feel them
Are they so advanced you can barely see
Them over football’s idyllic scenery
Perhaps they’re over the rural hills
Far and away and somewhere
In deepest middle England
Where football fans gather their
Thoughts and plan their expeditions
For next season’s home and away
August opening day of the season
Inevitabilities
Then there are the talks this summer
Over dozens of players
How enormously flattered they must
Be to be spoken of in glowing terms
Discussions of fees, all the minutiae
Of agents wrangling over their cut
For their prized assets
Millions of pounds whirring in their eyes
Like those seaside amusement arcades
On those delightful one armed bandits
Yesterday the 20 year old Albanian
Nurtured by Chelsea is considered
As a reasonably likely claret and blue
Acquisition for the Hammers
But then the probable becomes the
Highly unlikely,
It’s all open to interpretation
Since Broja is highly desirable but
No longer reasonably likely
So that’s final or a moderate
Possibility yet to be clarified
Before the tug of war
Between the parent club
Falls on stony ground
Finally round the clock talks
Become a subdued whisper
All change of heart and mind
Summon Broja back into
Chelsea’s greatest and latest
And yet again Jesse Lingard
Is still Wanted by David Moyes
Implying the Wild West baddie
Stealing from banks in cowboy mode
Then we discover that West Ham
Would love James Ward Prowse
To be in their well equipped ranks
Big name midfielders as opposed
To little names from some remote
Spot of Britain
And finally supporters will be buzzing
Like those traditional bees of summer
Or the dancing wasps that dart in and out
Of the balmy hawthorn bushes or the
Glorious yellow and red roses
Of the football summer pre-season
Hullabaloo
Last night the sleepy suburb
Of Hertfordshire
Awoke to Boreham Wood
Holding claret and blue
To the most honourable of 1-1
Draws. A minor shock but
Friendlies should never be
A barometer of any form
Since this is the dress rehearsal
For more dramatic contests
Of Premier League substance
And finally the Suffolk Tractor
Boys of Ipswich are banished
To the side lines
Defeated but hopeful of
A renaissance one day in
Exalted company
At the top table of the Premier
League’s feasting grounds
When Sir Bobby Robson
Once trod the sacrosanct
Green grass of Portman Road
But we prepared for football
And its linguistic complexity
When signings are talks
Or just advanced in their thinking
Closing in, waiting to pounce
On signings
Almost but not quite over the line
Or the goal line in which case
VAR in friendlies!
Now that’s an excellent idea
But back in the transfer window
Multi billion pound
Superstars
With extortionate billions
On their mind
At the right time and place
Football’s lovely literature
Never ceases to wonder
Keep waiting for golden boys
West Ham

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