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Streets of the Boro

Gordon Farrel

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 We were Peacock and Gibson, Yeoman and Kay
And Albert Park finals would last through the day
Til the Parky could be dodged no more
We’d restart near The Broadway and dispute the score

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 And the stumblers would sing us a song

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 If we thought we were good we were shown to be wrong
By the lad always first to be called
The star who did tricks with a ball
The kid who could make you look small

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Til his mam said he’d been out too long

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 From back alley Wembleys we’d run in disgrace
Hoping the woman in slippers can’t keep up the pace
As her freshly washed dirty sheets slap at our face
We’d escape to the safety of market stalls
And pick little Bob to go back for the ball

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 He’d blame the big lads when she answered the doorbell’s ding-dong

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 We come from the streets with the chimneys that smoked
Where the goal posts were moved as the wind took our coats
And the Priests were as big as the iron works blokes
Who moved in the shadows of tall foundry walls

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 This ring of iron is where we belong

© Gordon Farrel March 2011

Notes

Another poem about growing up in Middlesbrough where local parks and streets saw hundreds of important games. The Broadway is a local pub whose car park often became our evening pitch after we were kicked out of Albert Park. Alan Peacock, Ian Gibson, Ray Yeoman and Arthur Kay were the Middlesbrough players I first watched from the “Bob End” at Ayresome Park in the 1960’s. The ring of iron is The Teesside Fettler’s song about the iron ore in our beautiful Cleveland Hills that fed the iron works on the banks of the Tees, where it seemed like most of our dads and big brothers had worked.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/streets-of-the-boro/