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Stan Bowles- a tribute

joe morris

Sunday, February 25th, 2024

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 And so the flame has been
Snuffed out completely
Stanley, oh Stanley
Rebel, non conformist
Vices and temptations
You succumbed to so
Sadly
But the nation loved you
And always will
Stan Bowles now no longer
The Saturday afternoon darling
Who beguiled, charmed, educated
Those who thought football was just a dull
Rumbling noise
That flared into orange
Balls of fire
At Loftus Road
Stan Bowles
Maverick mischief maker
Never where he should have
Been when the West London
Streets called him back
In for tea
Absorbed by the bookies bug
Where the familiar
Bets on the 2.15
At Market Rasen
And Sandown
Prevailed for a while
While the 3.00
Kick off beckoned
At the business end
Of the old First Division
Just a flutter
He cried and implored
Bowles, the clandestine punt
On our four legged friends
But don’t tell
Those in the
Highest authorities
Gordon Jago must have
Known of course
But Stan lived his life
To the full, on the edge
The threshold of a step
Too far
And yet Stan Bowles
Was the epitome of class
And style
Silky, sinuous hips on the
Ball, slaloming past opponents
Tricking, teasing and taunting
That was hard wired into his DNA
Trapping and stunning a ball
With crafty deviousness
And duplicity
Football was Stan’s
Lifelong romance
Firstly at City for a while
But then seduced by the bright
Lights of lovely London town
Almost the Talk of the Town
Pavements of gold
And feverish expectation
Stan the sorcerer of course
Sometimes condemned to the
Naughty step and then fined
Heavily for misdemeanours
Too many
Late nights,
Boozy early mornings
When the pubs were locked
Down and then opened
For the beery misfits
Stan was the shining star
The best of the best
One of the boys
The personification of
Roguishness, another of
Those lively lads
Whatever happened to them?
It could have been so different
For England
If only you’d hit the pillow
At a respectable hour
But the nights went on forever
And the heady hedonism
Sent your head to into a dizzying
Swirl in the good time set
But Stan was our finest
Ripping up the script
And doing things his way
A joyous court jester
In football’s frenetic
Playground
We’ll never forget you.

Notes

Here’s my tribute to the great and now sadly late Stan Bowles.

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/stan-bowles-a-tribute/