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Politics and football

joe morris

Thursday, July 4th, 2024

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So here we stand by
The gates of political history
Keys clanking and jingling
On Thursdays, every five years
Portcullis and drawbridge
Ready to open,
Quite possibly to new Labour
But to misquote Baddiel and Skinner
Three parties on our chest
Never stopped me dreaming
Labour, Tory and Lib Dems
14 years of hurt
Never stopped me voting
You decide
Will it be Rishi Sunak
He, of Saintly virtue?
Southampton but none know why
Would it have been
The windmill arms of
Mick Channon, David Peach,
Peter Rodrigues
The late and much loved Bobby Stokes
Racing onto that exquisite through ball
And slamming home the FA Cup winner
Against United in 1976
The highly esteemed bosses
Ted Bates and Lawrie McMenemy
Managerial legends secure
And eternal
In Saints hearts
Or in the red corner
Sir Keir Starmer
A Gooner through and through
Pinning his colours
To yet more
Red breastplates
Of the Gunners
Shield
Will he be waking up
To the dulcet strains
Of things getting better?
As once Tony Blair
Insisted in black and white
Stripes of Newcastle
Unquestionable loyalty
Blaydon Races themes
The Gallowgate End roar
Driving Blair into
10, Downing Street
Remembering Malcolm Macdonald,
Alan Shearer, Terry Mcdermott,
Chris Waddle, Kevin Keegan
Of course, the Robledo brothers,
Bobby Mitchell from long ago
And then there’s the meek cry
Of Ed Davey
Falling comically into great lakes
Never trust a politician
Who stands on paddleboards
Or larks around on Bungee Jumps
Ed could support anybody
Maybe the yellow Hornets
Of Watford
You can feel a Sir Elton classic
Surging through your bloodstream
But the Lib Dems are just
A busted flush
Surely a wasted vote
But Ed could always point
To Lloyd George from
Many decades and over
A century ago
Football though,
Loves its
Prime Ministers
Besotted with
The Beautiful Game
Dear Harold Wilson
Sucking on the reliable
Pipe and blowing out
The tobacco, while
Thinking of his beloved
Huddersfield, who once
Swept all comers aside
With conveyor belts of
League Championship titles
Huddersfield, the Terriers
Who snapped into tackles
And beat the very best
So Ladies and Gentlemen
Please go out and vote
For political heavyweights
Cabinet ministers to be
New faces, familiar or just
Same old talking heads
Football still at the back
Of their minds
Sunak and Starmer
Still pre-occupied
With transfer windows,
Transfer gossip a plenty
Will the Saints go marching on
For Sunak’s Southampton
Back in the Premier League?
And will Arsenal clinch
The Premier League title
At the third time of asking?
It’s possible, you know.
Sir Keir, your Gunners
Never let you down
Once Invincibles
But now it can be done
Again, he must believe
His loving dad once had
The tools of labour
Yes Labour as well
Working class through and through
Football’s General Election
Today
How we’ve all looked forward
To sitting on that
Seat of democracy
Bring it on

Notes

So here we are again. It’s General Election day and how we remember, quite amusingly, the Prime Ministers who wore the club colours of football’s great and good.

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/politics-and-football-3/