Football Poets

Editor Note: This poem is from Joe’s book The Taking Part, a short collection of poems on the theme of sport and games, published by Maytree Press in 2021. https://joewilliams.co.uk/publication/the-taking-part/

Explanatory note on the poem :

The 1902 Ibrox disaster was the collapse of a stand at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Govan (now part of Glasgow), Scotland. The incident led to the deaths of 25 supporters and injuries to 500 more during an international association football match between Scotland and England on 5 April 1902 as part of the 1901–02 British Home Championship.

The Burnden Park disaster was a human crush that occurred on 9 March 1946 at Burnden Park football stadium, then the home of Bolton Wanderers. The crush resulted in the deaths of 33 people and injuries to hundreds of Bolton fans.[1] It was the deadliest stadium-related disaster in British history until the Ibrox Park disaster in 1971.

The Bradford City stadium fire occurred during a Football League Third Division match between Bradford City and Lincoln City on Saturday, 11 May 1985 at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, killing 56 spectators and injuring at least 265.

The Heysel Stadium disaster was a crowd disaster that occurred on 29 May 1985 when mostly Juventus fans were pressed against a collapsing wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, before the start of the 1985 European Cup Final between the Italian and English clubs. 39 people—mostly Italians and Juventus fans—were killed and 600 were injured in the confrontation

The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the two standing-only central pens in the Leppings Lane stand allocated to Liverpool supporters. Shortly before kick-off, in an attempt to ease overcrowding outside the entrance turnstiles, the police match commander David Duckenfield ordered exit gate C to be opened, leading to an influx of supporters entering the pens.^[2] This resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the crush. With 97 deaths and 766 injuries, it has the highest death toll in British sporting history.^[