Football Poets

Klopp’s Liverpool held by happy Hammers

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So there you were on the brink
Of adolescence
Voice finally broken
Hormones in disarray
Struggling with the
Realisation that school
Had offered nothing
Of any note or substance
It was the last game
Of the season
At the Boleyn Ground
Liverpool about to
Be crowned in the
Footballing throne room
Of the old First Division
Down for the day
From loquacious Liverpool
Genetically humorous
Ever since the day
Jimmy Tarbuck met Cilla
On the seething and heaving
Kop where the song wordsmiths
Once swapped pleasantries
With the Fab Four
But then on the last game
Of the League season
In 1978
The Merseyside choir ensemble
Converged on the Smoke
Those Southerners will never
Win anything
They sniffed disdainfully
And they were right
Keegan and Toshack saw to that
While Tommy Smith, Ian Callaghan,
Phil Thompson, tall and
Impassable, Chris Lawler
Just everywhere
What a team
Gold standard bearers
Of the Liver Birds
Crest, trumpeting their
Attacking excellence
And simple, expansive
One touch football
That left the claret and blues
From East London
Gripped with paranoia
Why did it have to be them?
It had to be Liverpool
They must have muttered
Then the final whistle went
And the Hammers were relegated
For the first time in 20 years
Desperately, pitifully and soberingly
By now John Lyall’s Stratford army
Had mobilised his troops
Settling his feet at the
The table of the Upton Park
Academy, always listening,
Learning and studying
The West Ham way
Crisp, laconic, free flowing
Football towards my South Bank
Residence, pleasure
To watch the embryo
That always promised
Then delivered
My old school friends though
Have also moved on
We’ve touched base since
In one of those splendid reunions
But yesterday they were elsewhere
Probably chewing the cud
About football never losing its romance
Yesterday the Hammers eke out a 2-2 draw
Against Liverpool
Europe probably gone now
But how we’ve soaked up the delights
Of Prague last June
The fruits of
Always epic labours
Back then to late Saturday games
And Sunday lunchtimes if the FA
Insist, they surely will
Next season
Perhaps a blessing in relief
Since Thursday and Sunday
Football always seemed unusual
As incongruous as a roast
On a Saturday evening
No complaints about the season
Though, Top 10
In the Premier League
Modesty prevailed
No trophies this time
Just the knowledge
That we were there

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