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London derby

joe morris

Tuesday, February 4th, 2025

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 The London derby
The East-West axis
Needle and malice
Surely unnecessary
Chelsea against West Ham
So many explosive moments
Rivalry unconfined
Last night
Once again at each other’s throats
Going for the jugular
Vengeance burning
Conflict at its
Most ferocious intensity
Parochial pettiness
But for 90 minutes
It became personal
The Hammers against the Blues
Potter and Marescha
So many chameleon memories
Always changing from claret to
Blue and then the Bridge
Welcome their Blue heroes
After recent Blues
Agonised lack of form
Under the weather
Poorly, briefly
Miserable malaise
But last night
A wicked deflection
Presented Chelsea
With three points
West Ham revived now
Rocking and rolling
Under Potter
A point at Villa
Now producing his
Finest earthenware vase
Art and craft in
Perfect symmetry
Bowen back on fire again
Pouncing on home blunders
Before Chelsea find
Their latest
And familiar fashions
The Kings Road
Alive with monarchs
Reigning supreme
Resuscitated in the
Second half
Cole Palmer
Re-discovering his
England clothes
Jinking,jiving,jesting
With the Hammers defence
Chelsea level the game
It had to be
Overwhelming barrage of
Pressure, pressing, breaking
Of lines and more lines
Then the sudden shot-cum cross
Richochets wildly off Wan Bissaka
Chelsea back in the top four
Oh we can hear the distant voices
And legacies left behind
By Cooke, Webb, Harris, Hutchinson,
Baldwin, Ossie Osgood, Butch Wilkins
Silk and steel fusing and gelling
Perfectly
But now their modern-day architects
Are building from different foundations
Jackson, Pato, Pedro, Palmer
Linking and then threading
With ornate organza
Passes and movements
From instinct and memory
Swagger and smoothness
In their traditional chronicles
Of celebrated history
Chelsea knocking on doors
Of European frontiers
Again, anybody in?
West Ham just muddling through
And pleading for the end of the
Season’s end
Never at the races
Mid table mediocrity
Flat as pancake day
At times
But Graham Potter
He could be there for
Some time
We must hope

Notes

So Chelsea win the East-West London derby against West Ham. A terrible season for the Irons so far but come on you Irons.

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/london-derby-2/