Football Poets

When school was out for summer

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So there we were
In the middle of
That academic minefield
When school was far from
Out for summer
For it was 50 years ago
Agonising over French verbs
Past, present and future
Mais bien sur
Of course
History lessons
On the Tudor Stewarts
And briefly the Battle of Hastings
Suddenly Roy Mcfarland and Kevin Hector
Joined in seamlessly with
Our teenage conversation
At the old Wembley
Logical connection perhaps
With centuries gone by
Derby County
Sadly historic residents
In football’s top flight
Once giants of the old First Division
But back in 1975
The Rams were battering
The Hammers, bludgeoned
Savagely
In the Charity Shield
Yes the Community Shield
In its present day incarnation
A brutal attack on your
Team, Thames Ironworks
The happy Hammers
Only a 2-0 loss
On the day
But Derby had just
Enjoyed its
League Championship
Coronation,
A team that demanded respect
The old First Division trophy
Something to remind us
Of the Baseball Ground
Where Cloughie once ruled
With a rod of iron,
No nonsense,
Unapologetically
Iconoclastic
Don’t mess with me,
Son, Cloughie
Who once implored
His fellow Yorskhiremen
Leeds, to throw
Those medals in the bin
You didn’t deserve them
And that was his truth
But 50 years ago
A Scot named
Dave Mackay
Hard as wood and iron
Walked out at Wembley
With his mature
Your claret and blue
Counterpart
Ilford’s very own
John Lyall
Ah yes you remember
Ilford well
West Ham through and through
FA Cup winners in that distant
Era of glam rock ostentation
But the League champions
Were a force to be reckoned with
While the Hammers
Still boasted Bonds, Brooking,
Taylor and Holland
Mighty centrifugal
Powerhouses
And then when the Charity Shield
Offered its milk of human kindness
The League season gave
Back, muddled mediocrity to
The Upton Park foot soldiers
While Derby just swanned off
With football from the Magic Circle
Week in, week out rabbits
Out of the hat
From the Baseball Ground
While you were straining
Every formative brain cell
Studying and swotting
When your barmitzvah
Came calling
In the November of that
Year,
Rites of passage
Adolescence, or so
We were led to believe
But of course it was
Undoubtedly so
But teenage hormones
Were pumping with
Purpose and then poise
Rather like West Ham
Still likeable but never feared
That’s the story of a
Thousand ages
Play on you Irons

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