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Spion Kop

Graham Salter

Thursday, October 26th, 2023

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 SPION KOP
“In 1903 we stood on Spion Kop
Clattering our hob-nail boots against the wall”
My grand-dad recollected this for me
When he was eighty, in Nineteen Sixty Three
Remembering a centre-half called Joe McCall.
“And we walked the road from Deepdale to Ewood Park…”
The tale went on, recalling his Edwardian past
“…to support North End on Easter Saturday”
Strange to think of grand-pa as a lad
With all his footy mates on the Fulwood End
New christened “Spion Kop” from the Boer War
Perhaps by be-whiskered patriots, perhaps
Ironically, as a dry Lancastrian joke:
“A Hill for Heroes (Eeh It’s just like Spion Kop!)”

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 The century progressed – through a crueller war
Somehow or other he was spared the Somme
He lived to see Shankly, then Finney in his prime
And he told me his tale in Nineteen Sixty Three
Before oblivion could steal it all away

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Now sixty years plus sixty have gone by
I am as far from my memory as he was from his
And the Spion Kop, the hill at the Fulwood End
Has been rebuilt, renamed and filled with seats.
The ground is bathed in winter sunset now
The players have left, the floodlights start to dim,
And the homebound crowd walks on down Deepdale Road.

Notes

This is not the famous Spion Kop at Anfield, but the one which is now called the Shankly Kop, at Preston.
Joe McCall was a great favourite at Deepdale before and after the First World War.
Spion Kop, like Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking, was a battle in the Boer War.
I think one of the most positive things about football is the way loyalty to a particular team can be passed down through the generations.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/spion-kop/