Football Poets | Greg Freeman | Activity https://footballpoets.org/members/gregoryfreeman/activity/ Activity feed for Greg Freeman. Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:11:06 +0100 https://buddypress.org/?v= en-GB 30 hourly 2 fef082fefc689172345e08a758cfa718 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/15470/ Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:08:28 +0000 0 43086e3318fe309576d0db510b16ea8b Greg Freeman posted an update: To misquote Larkin, but only slightly: "We must be kind / […] https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/15289/ Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:50:31 +0000 To misquote Larkin, but only slightly: “We must be kind / before it’s full-time.”

]]> 0 93c2aed5c510dd49a68227fa73d23542 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/sometimes-it-really-is-a-beautiful-game/ Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:08:51 +0100 “Perhaps we are all wrong,
and Southgate
is a substitution genius.”

The Facebook banter
after the England game
moves into the realm
of long-ago memory
as we talk of previous
footballing magic […]

]]> 617455c0c05fef4550d3d8961da64a33 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/15134/ Fri, 31 May 2024 07:45:02 +0100 0 31ce4d1ed007cd338dbf4a68436a697e Greg Freeman commented on a poem on Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/come-on-the-colliers-2/#comment-6499 Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:43:54 +0000 Ashington FC have launched a £50,000 Crowdfunder appeal to meet the increased costs of winning promotion last season, to pay for urgent stadium improvements, travel costs and equipment

]]> 3b0cfccc8872cb6b2a8a8fa5492c3b1f Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/farwell-sir-bobby/ Sat, 21 Oct 2023 22:25:07 +0100 Thunderous shooting that transcended his era.
Maybe you have to be a certain age.
When they announced it during the game
the crowd of six hundred
barely reacted. No gasps or murmurs.
My son shrugged, […]

]]> 8c3bfd76233b8f375db7ce0488babba6 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/floating-man/ Fri, 06 Oct 2023 22:02:21 +0100 Uh-oh. The world’s gone pear-shaped.
I have a feeling that I’m close to home,
or at least the train. Too old for this
malarkey. Was doing so well. Now
I’m all over the place, lost count,
head swimming. This […]

]]> 7059aa0e93444faea3fb7ee2cecb334a Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-hunger/ Fri, 25 Aug 2023 10:54:26 +0100 One hundred thousand,
at least, for a friendly.
The Russians were
still our friends, weren’t they?
November 1945.
So many servicemen
back from the war

hungry to watch football again.
A photo s […]

]]> 334f238c87e0301c196bc7bb3a3cef27 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/come-on-the-colliers-2/ Fri, 25 Aug 2023 08:32:20 +0100 A lone bugler occasionally
blasts out the right note.
Maybe also the source
of the odd native American
war cry. The few hundred at Ashington
are passionate in their support.

Proud mining town, home
of […]

]]> 2d4091c1421c4cb3a8701a1cde2d15be Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-blyth-bus/ Sat, 01 Jul 2023 07:19:16 +0100 Jack, always the town planner,
is interested in the wind turbine
that can be seen from the ground
as well as the old terrace houses,
and fatalistic about the enormous
estate pub boarded up
for more than a […]

]]> 468c6508cb4f40e395071ab143212b25 Greg Freeman commented on a poem on Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/ref-botherers/#comment-4967 Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:20:28 +0100 To put it politely!

]]> 1da4ca7b67e57dd89f3c5b9e7fb6a6b2 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-old-stamford-bridge/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:18:39 +0100 Greyhound track that separated
us from our idols. Banging
the corrugated back of the Shed.
Boys’ turnstile. Rosettes, rattles,
hot dog sellers, trains that rumbled
behind the North Stand.

One of the b […]

]]> 2d29eac170f3b5dd560dfd6ca5147392 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/lunatics-and-the-sickness-of-parrots/ Sun, 14 Aug 2022 07:01:16 +0100 Ancient Chinese proverb:
one football fan’s
never-to-be-forgotten
victory is another’s
hardest-to-swallow defeat.

]]> c6ba8bf59e5bc07fcd3ffbcdff18a350 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/homecoming/ Sun, 31 Jul 2022 19:21:46 +0100 Always a lovely song
that plucked at the heartstrings.
But over the years it took on
a melancholy, mournful note.
So many disappointments,
hands of God, penalty shoot-outs,
racist abuse on social […]

]]> 15dbfbc46edd83ca7439fb0966e32d12 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/glory-days-2/ Tue, 26 Jul 2022 08:40:23 +0100 Remember Brian Glover in Kes? The teacher
imagining he’s Bobby Charlton, United v Spurs?
This bloke was something similar.

Me and my brother were drinking
at the Spanish campsite pool bar. He told u […]

]]> bb667a33e22fec1389be610bf93bd4f2 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/a-pride-of-lionesses-and-all-the-other-teams/ Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:42:54 +0100 Parade of the pony-tails.
No wrestling in the box;
getting up and getting on with it.
Football as it should be played.

Showing the men how to entertain,
putting them to shame.
The spirit of sport. […]

]]> 3ad0cd47995d021dbe621ed799eef0a8 Greg Freeman commented on a poem on Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/tony-dorigo/#comment-4862 Wed, 13 Jul 2022 08:02:11 +0100 I remember Tony Dorigo!  Australian full back. Scored the only goal for Chelsea in the Full Members Cup Final v Middlesbrough in 1990 (had to check Google). By pure chance I had a ticket for the press box. […]

]]> 7efe2de1eb80401b271c6640e2e487f1 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-family-silver/ Wed, 15 Jun 2022 05:11:02 +0100 Never really knew my mother’s father.
All I remember: tuft of nostril hair,
spied from sitting on his knee; hoard
of half-hidden threepenny pieces
slipped into a sandpit outside the lido.

In pictures he l […]

]]> d8a83dad58bbe649963f35f8dcec809a Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/decline-and-fall/ Mon, 14 Mar 2022 09:26:07 +0000 ‘Some people think that football
is a matter of life and death …’

I was a Chelsea supporter
for 40 years before
the Roman empire.

Fan is short for fanatic.
Empires fall. Football’s
nowhere near
as […]

]]> d34521a5bfc44dec9cf6bc0a1f051c66 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/14336/ Thu, 03 Mar 2022 08:52:55 +0000 0 8f16b48dc51cec731f6365596517bd37 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-football-scores/ Thu, 03 Mar 2022 08:30:40 +0000 The early April afternoon was glorious.

The daffs were out, I felt Wordsworthian.

You’d come down from York to look

at houses. We caroused that evening

with old friends in the Railway Tavern – […]

]]> 8509f843d636c010dfacd100876dfdd1 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/a-religious-conversion/ Sat, 12 Feb 2022 10:45:14 +0000 I won’t mention the team. The reason?
I’d like most readers to stick
with this beyond the first lines.
It isn’t which club, or even football,
but about a father and daughter
forming an unexpected, unbre […]

]]> 7649bc6f3d3ae89a1f271d9cc9f2b7d5 Greg Freeman posted an update: Several of my football poems are included in my new full […] https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/14186/ Sun, 07 Nov 2021 09:44:59 +0000 Several of my football poems are included in my new full collection, Marples Must Go! https://www.dempseyandwindle.com/gregfreeman.html

]]> 0 26f02fc0d0dcea5de8fea66033dfe575 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/in-the-pink/ Thu, 07 Oct 2021 13:45:37 +0100 Impatient men and boys waited
outside newsagents at six o’clock,
for vans to deliver their bundles.
News or Standard? Rival
papers competed to produce
Saturday night sports papers,
all the football s […]

]]> a716ca0dbd83c852bace8438e8384f42 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/back-at-the-match-after-philip-larkin/ Tue, 05 Oct 2021 22:52:57 +0100 The beckoning floodlights
still work their magic,
early October’s comforting chill,
scarf snug round the neck.
Blood pulses through arteries,
moving as it should. Heart lifts
with every step towards the s […]

]]> fcbb0fc3fba985b66c74fed1e40d4c6b Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/watching-england-with-carol-ann-duffy/ Sun, 19 Sep 2021 07:33:28 +0100 It seems like a dream now:
the 1-4 scoreline;
Lampard’s goal that never was;
watching the game with Carol Ann Duffy.

She turned up amid the half-time gloom
in the pub, asked if it was ok
to sit near the T […]

]]> c34402b55ca20097a824abbdb04c1168 Greg Freeman posted an update: My debut full collection Marples Must Go!, which includes […] https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/14140/ Sun, 19 Sep 2021 07:24:42 +0100 My debut full collection Marples Must Go!, which includes some football poems posted here, is now available from publishers Dempsey & Windle https://www.dempseyandwindle.com/gregfreeman.html

]]> 0 20ae58d5af7fed7c993543f073ecea9d Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/14139/ Sun, 19 Sep 2021 07:22:58 +0100 0 f17dbe67aa57d67f90cdd6e23170c1a4 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-strikers-fear-of-the-penalty/ Thu, 24 Jun 2021 12:20:43 +0100 ‘The goalkeeper’s fear of the penalty’ –
but shouldn’t a striker fear it
so much more? The keeper isn’t
expected to save; the forward
is obliged to score. A penalty
can help break the duck,
if you’re […]

]]> 35109c4d3244608747fa8215a61d2c01 Greg Freeman posted an update: Highly recommended! Brian Bilston's '50 Ways to Score a […] https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13842/ Tue, 15 Jun 2021 21:35:59 +0100 Highly recommended! Brian Bilston’s ’50 Ways to Score a Goal and other football poems’ (Macmillan). An ideal accompaniment to the Euros that’s not just for kids. Here’s my review on Write Out Loud https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=115831

]]> 0 7b3ae3fb7f374236578177989c2856cb Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13840/ Tue, 15 Jun 2021 08:29:26 +0100 0 d245c5225d9d4f65f6eba19086135d8f Greg Freeman commented on a poem on Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/on-a-magic-porto-night/#comment-3944 Mon, 07 Jun 2021 19:06:01 +0100 Thanks for this, Crispin, a souvenir of a memorable night. Reading it brought tears to my eyes. Commiserations to City fans, I thought your name was on the trophy this time.

]]> 6214d762a407ab1a44295a026c7831d0 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/black-and-blue-3/ Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:32:22 +0100 As the boos rang out at the Riverside
I remembered my team’s
first black player
coming on as sub in the 80s,
the storm of hate from the Shed.

The shock and anguish I felt,
wondering if I could c […]

]]> 9dc7597465997e3a2d7c099412553930 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/touchline-dads/ Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:18:41 +0000 A winter’s day, a darkening sky. Warned

by the ref midway through the first half

for over-enthusiastic touchline coaching:

I don’t know what you’re on, but I want some of it.

Those games meant […]

]]> 54aa17f7d6d735bcc5401331fc15bf4c Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-battle-of-hastings-as-summarised-by-roy-keane/ Tue, 09 Feb 2021 14:08:51 +0000 Look at it not so much as a game
of two halves – although it was that,
too – but the result of fixture congestion.
Pure and simple. Two crucial matches,
far too close together. A great win up north,
d […]

]]> 614100f23ced6aa3df7dc3aae848bfe5 Greg Freeman commented on a poem on Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/undaunted-support/#comment-3833 Tue, 09 Feb 2021 14:04:31 +0000 ‘Get stuck in’ … the same managerial advice we were offered as 3rd Tolworth Cubs, back in the day. And at half-time, the same refrain, slightly amended: ‘The trouble is, you’re not getting stuck in enough …’

]]> 8d6f8d16327b48edbc38691d98899668 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13580/ Tue, 09 Feb 2021 08:42:50 +0000 0 439fda7aa455ccb6699312541b54f258 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13578/ Mon, 08 Feb 2021 18:04:32 +0000 0 068419dfe41c39404b8783b474ec8992 Greg Freeman changed their profile picture https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13577/ Mon, 08 Feb 2021 18:03:45 +0000 0 c370a52e3bb3db760a8c255186c6fa04 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/howay-the-lad/ Mon, 08 Feb 2021 17:51:18 +0000 It may be just a pre-season friendly,
he’s the wrong side of thirty; I still
get the same joy watching him play.
Diehard tackles, rampaging forward,
exhorting teammates, lusting for goals.

I’m double his […]

]]> e0e5ea8c9b687181ec7b5b22f30ddb31 Greg Freeman became a registered member https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13570/ Mon, 08 Feb 2021 11:41:24 +0000 0 8d3867a95b81f8d437971b67a17b8fc3 Greg Freeman's profile was updated https://footballpoets.org/activity/p/13567/ Sun, 07 Feb 2021 11:22:45 +0000 0 aa79dbeb1e5b89df03de9018fea8ed7f Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/man-with-a-pipe/ Mon, 06 Jul 2015 23:00:00 +0100 Definition of the ultimate stoic?
A season ticket holder at Stockport.
Apparently insouciant amid
rain and defeats, shouting nothing,
just chewing furiously
on his briar, the only sign perhaps
of piqued pride. […]

]]> 35ee67d18ba9cd3880ecfff9de1c3775 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/october-1966/ Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:00:00 +0100 OCTOBER 1966

Reach Out I’ll Be There at number one,
pounding from the Tannoy at half-time.
Fifty-five thousand on a Wednesday night;
three-nil against Spurs, all second-half goals.
Crushed in the Fulham Road q […]

]]> 35b54528d68a962ee5703179a3dbb5bd Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/didier-drogba-2/ Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:00:00 +0100 The Portuguese barber – with vain hopes,
it turns out, for tonight against Spain –
puts down his scissors, stares at me
in the mirror. It’s emerged that we love
the same club. He describes in detail
a special o […]

]]> 0605ca3c3132748c55b2a2b438a15114 Greg Freeman published a poem on the site Football Poets http://footballpoets.org/poems/game-of-two-halves/ Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 If Shevchenko had put away that last-minute chance,
There’d have been no miracle of Istanbul.
If Maradona’s Hand of God goal had been disallowed,
England might still have lost on penalties

If the police at Hil […]

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