Football Poets

The Championship title race

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So here we are in
Deja vu territory
In the Championship
Title race
Slowly building up
A head of steam
Pulses racing
Bubbling up
Nicely
Temperatures soaring
By April
But now
Familiarity breeds
Guesswork
Conjecture for the
Time being but
Much more to come
At the moment
The Foxes and the Saints
Caught in the headlights
Joined in full combat mode
We have been before
With both since
Both Leicester and Southampton
Are poised to return
From where they came
Last season
Relegated and now possibly
Promoted yet again
Within moments of emotional
Flux,
Football can hit you in the
Stomach when least expected
But now Leicester in the driving
Seat with not a hint of traffic
On the roads
Apart from a row of cones
And sandbags
Tailbacks
Flashing police lights
And wailing sirens
Hard shoulders and
Motorway service stations
Ready for Leicester’s
80 mile sprint towards
The finishing line
It isn’t in the bag
But the King Power stadium
Is ready for hunting themes
Yet again
To call out in
Premier League
Prowling in the undergrowth
But bracing themselves
For Premier League predators
Then Southampton surely sainted
Souls prepared for top flight
Cut and thrust
Crunch, thud, snap and tackle
The way it was before demotion
Sent shock waves through St Mary’s
Now the South Coast
Ready to welcome old adversaries
Or old acquaintances from
Last season’s scars and wounds
Then Leeds United
Once purists and puritans
Under the Don
Revie when Lorimer, Bremner,
Giles, Clarke and Jones
Performed the tango and salsa
In that iconic match
Where their fellow Championship
Rivals are now living
Leeds 7 Southampton 0.
Elevated to the peerage
It was Leeds at their most
Regal and riveting
But recently reduced to
Trampoline artists
Down one moment
Up the next
Once in the hellish
Fiery pit of League One
Sharks circling Elland Road
First there was Bielsa
Who literally abandoned
Everything in the name of art
Before the easel cracked under
The strain, Leeds collapsing
From on high but still loved
For those ostentatious
Show stoppers who once
Flicked, flicked, back heeled
Just for the fun of it
Passing pleasure
Then notorious for
The wrong and unsavoury
Now on the verge of
Yet another return
To the upper classes
Of Premier League proms
Permanent this time
Since when Leeds are
In the right frame of mind
Are sweet jazz music
On our minds
Clear thinking clarinets,
Tumultuous trumpets
Pretty pianos
A force for good
Never dull
A symphony of like minds
Unstoppable, matchless
Behind Leeds are Ipswich
And West Brom
Who now look like those
Olympic gymnasts
Rolling, tumbling, slipping
And sliding
Both important ambassadors
At top flight conferences
Ipswich under Bobby Robson
Just charmers and charming
But in recent years
Stuck in a rut
Gates, Whymark, Woods
Mariner and Talbot
Touching the purple of
Majesty and magnificence
Now though finding their feet
Again when the time
Seems right
The Baggies of West Brom
Once again regrouping
And resurrecting
No longer the Bryan Robson,
John Wile, Len Cantello,
Cyril Regis from decades ago
But building blocks and stages
And champing at the bit
Be ready to Boing Boing again
On heaving, electric terraces
At the Hawthorns
The Championship title race
Approaching the final bends
We remember your journey
Since these were the pathways
We’ve trodden before
Keep going gentlemen

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