Football Poets

It was worth it in the end

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Well, I never
Oh yes, finally again
Against the odds
The impossible dream
Glorious Blighty
Standing on the shoulders
Of 1966 when
Sir Geoff Hurst
Spun a hat-trick
Of World Cup jubilation
But now it’s happening again
Once again England
Reach the land of fairy tales
Fantasies fulfilled
Oh England, England
It almost seems as
If, at any moment,
Somebody will jolt us
From our sleep
And it was just some
Ridiculous illusion
Gareth in Wonderland
Forget the dull functionality
Of the preliminaries
The grey ordinariness
Of those plodding, walking,
Hesitating, grinding to
A painful standstill, moments
Of wretched, plain awful
Football with no bite
Little or no idea or purpose
Going around in ever increasing circles
And hitting Swiss, Slovakian and Slovenian
Walls of stubborn intransigence
Dwelling on the ball for
Several seasons of the year
Where were England going
Until somebody jabbed us
In the ribs?
And startled us into proactive
Action packed vibrancy
Against those orange cloggers
From the Netherlands
No more recycling in Amsterdam
Take your leisure
By the all embracing canals
With hashish cake for breakfast
But we love the Dutch
Because you gave us the joyous
Windmills of Mick Channon
In his Southampton and City pomp
But tonight Villa’s finest
Ollie Watkins
Pulled it out of the
Magician’s hat
In that Roy of the Rovers
90th minute winner
Of gold,
Burnished in history
66 million blood pressures
Soaring into a far distant
Stratosphere
Hearts palpitating so fast
That it took another
Cliff hanging climax
First the flying Dutchman
Took aeronautical engineering
To another dimension
With opening goal
Before minutes later
Harry Kane became
That exemplary Citizen Kane
Oh, if only Orson Wells
Could have been here
On this night of nights
Harry’s studs caught,
A blatant trip
Penalty tucked away
In the postage stamp
Of the net
Level pegging
Parity for ages
Honours even
For seemingly an eternity
English and Dutch
Allies to so many
In the bloodiest of wars
But now joined at the hip
End to end
In basketball mode
Nothing between them
Thrilling, gripping
Intoxication in every
Village, city and town pub
Across Middle England
Sleepy for so many years
But now leaping out of bed
Flinging open the blinds
Sunshine floods through
Anglo Saxon tributaries
Victory rubber stamped
Y Viva Espana on Sunday
For Gareth’s sweat soaked icons
Spain in the Euro 2024
Final.
England, the luckiest team
Of them all
But who cares?
We’ve done it
Berlin on Sunday
Fortune favours the brave
It’s been 58 years in
The waiting
But who’s to say that fate
Indeed maybe wearing
A white shirt?
They said we were crazy
And delusional to think
That England couldn’t
But reigning against Spain
It has a ring about it
Sangrias all around

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