Football Poets

I could never decide when I was a young teenager
Did I want to be Elvis, King Kenny, or John Lydon
Or Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Jazz, whose incomparable voice
Enchanted my childhood, and resonates […]

The technicolour black and white
Diamond brilliance
Of generations who stood
On the terrace choir
Throats blistered with unrequited passion
Whilst its youth watched champions deposed
And parliament auction […]

No not Matthews or Bowles
But Accrington Stanley
Ian Rush’s favourite Reds
“Oooo are dey?”
I hear ye cry
Well look to your football history
Take a trip down memory lane
And with tones of the late Joe Gladwin
Slip […]

There’s a dream that I left back in childhood
In the overgrown grass down a lane

On a park that was my very own Anfield
A place where the child used to play

That place where the days stretched in summer
And the […]

The stadium
Is not rammed like the Maracana
And the seats do not meet the clouds
Like the Nou
But the boys could be Juve
Proud in black and white
Beneath the Bacup skies
So very blue….

Football fans they lead the way
Making banners for the day
12th September No Hate No Fear
Refugees are welcome here.

There’s a pie that’s backed in Bacup
With a pedigree so rare
Blessed with rich ingredients
And made with love and care
Its recipe is secret
And no soul would dare reveal
But so succulent the pastry
Wrapped in sau […]

I wrote my poem
On the studs of his football boots
No one would read my words
But they would be as springs
Hidden invisible
Strong for he who would leap
As salmon leap into rainbows

I wrote my poem
On the back […]

We throw our hopes out like nets out to sea
For 90 minutes of “if only”
Love, despair the recipe the same… it is all,
Do we hear the heartstrings snap
As our world hangs over the abyss
Of a goalpost
By the skin […]

What poetry would pour
From gilded boots
Flashing like blades
Vibrant the pulse thudding
With a slow moving seduction of senses
Betwixt steaming pies and mushy peas
Whilst the doppelgängers of football
Gather i […]

We’ve got a new striker
He’s fast and he’s fleet
He’s got lightning for boots
And thunder for feet!

We paid out in millions
For his first touch is sweet
He’s quicker than sugar
Dissolving in tea!

His passes […]

Not for me Ronaldo beauty
Henry’s chic with me won’t score
Stevie Gerrard all red passion
But Stan Ternent Je t’adore

David Beckham in his undies
Leaves me cold I simply yawn
Lionel Messi completely boring
Oh […]

The football season beckons now
And hearts begin to stir
New signings V the long goodbyes
Buying new home shirts

The past mistakes forgiven now
A blank page upon to verse
The slip ups all forgotten sure
In […]

The Beautiful Game
Eating itself
Gorged with contracts
Three-person’d deals
It’s blattered heart
All played out.

It is the mark of the man
To be known by his deeds
Not words
When stars dipped down low in the sky
Squinting and illuminated
For one night in Istanbul
Bringing auld Big Ears back home
And we was fab again
We sang […]

In the year of Our Lord nineteen fourteen
The call came for lads to join up with a team
So they packed up their boots with their hopes and dreams
And they offered their hearts for the price of a shilling

For the […]

The Gaza strip
Should be a football shirt
Of neutral colours
One size fits all…

Splattered with sweat
Not sanctimonious lessons not learnt
From history

Worn with peace
Not pieces of bodies

Played on a p […]

The “Blonde Arrow”
Brightest star
Whose joy nursed the birth pangs
Of football
The apostle whose ministry preached
The beautiful game
With his boots wedded to the ball
How well he would build the attack
And sen […]

With my heart well and truly battered
and sprung from nets of cynicism
three-pronged desires of sovereignty
I give to thee…
Battered heart and fortress soul
complicit with the shadows of
the childhood ghosts […]

Moses plays for Liverpool
And like the risen Christ
The Red sea flows back senses alive
And swells impregnated
With the thirst of the many
For the glory of the few.