Football Poets

No football for a while

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 The world is still, silent
Sleeping peacefully
On echoing terraces
Where once the loud and tribal
Voices of unrest and agitated
Thoughts thrust out the arias
Of victory and defeat
Now reduced to whispers
No longer the influential mob
The collective approval
And disapproval
Football now in reflective mood
Contemplating its navel
While the Beautiful Game
Takes a back seat
To the resounding cracks
Of red ball and willow
The Lord’s Test match
Ashes burnt through the ages
Billionaire burnished egos
On sun coated islands
Global havens
Where football’s summer
Beach boys
Quite possibly
Good vibrations
During July vacations
Now Premier League playboys
Or just studious when
Tactics and formations
Were just yesterday’s news
Now football on the side lines
Taking a welcome breather
Against the idyllic backdrop
Of Wimbledon’s tennis
Easy going gentility
Its temporary statesmanship
During the summer lull
While football nurses wounds,
Battered tendons, hurt pride
The close season
Now reverting to the charming
Language of closing in on
New signings, advanced talks
Yet more rousing rhetoric
Constant communication
Then the endless round of
Friendlies, good natured
Knockabouts.
Then the alleged medicals
The knotty negotiations,
Discussions and formalities
For this is football today
Mind blowing millions
Declan sadly leaving his
Claret and blue nest
For the graceful Gunners
£105 million, surely not
Tom Finney must be weeping
In his grave
Mourning the loss of the
Innocent and unsullied
When football and plumbers
Shared the same journey
To thousands of grounds
Maybe a thought or two
For newly promoted Leyton
Orient
Luton Town in the limelight
For the first time since
David Pleat galloped across
Maine Road and Happy Harry
Haslam smiled through
The gritted teeth of
Obscenely expensive players
Breaking the glass ceiling
For Orient and Luton
Are football’s whimpering
Underdogs, capable
Of miraculous feats
Then painfully aware of
Their station in football’s
Natural order of things
Think for a while
Of course
About seaside salubrious
Southend United
Once of the Football League
Now no more than some passing
Stranger, wandering through
The bleakness of Non League
Anonymity, swallowed
By all enveloping mists
Of sombre auras
Unforgiving wastelands
In the middle of nowhere
But Manchester City
At the other end of the
Spectrum
Find themselves poised
To complete a sensational
Quartet of Premier League
Titles
While Arsenal, Manchester United,
Liverpool and Spurs
Surround City
Hunting in packs
Ready to pounce on a minute’s
Vulnerability
Concentrate instead
On payment structures
August again
When the game unwinds
Its rested torsos
On billiard table pitches
And yet on thick, lush
Grass for the season’s duration
No longer the allotment sites
We used to mock from near and far
Football, just over a month
Away from saturation coverage
On Tablets, TV and social media
Drenching our coffee tables
With gallivanting gossip
Across Sunday morning’s seething
Rumour factory
City or Arsenal?
It could be either
Local derbies with
Spice and steel
Crashing, clashing
Long held feuds
Deep set, traditional
Rivalries, rampant
Passions, then a
Refreshment or two
To soothe a fevered brow
But football at the moment
Quiet as a summer meadow
Where only buttercups glow
And corn fields reside
While centre halves and forwards
Plan their agendas
On lofty hills far and wide
Managers moan and groan
It could only be football
Shortly, again

16