Football Poets

It must have been 1965,
We were having a lunchtime kick-about.
‘It’s Good News Week’ by Hedgehoppers’ Anonymous
Was playing on someone’s transistor
Just behind the goal nearest the school,
Someone was puffi […]

When watching Brazil

It’s just like watching Brazil.

Life’s like that sometimes.

I was determined to boycott the World Cup,
And be like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress:
Avoiding all seductive temptations,
And deceptions from the ‘beautiful game’ –
For the arguments against watch […]

That autumnal expedition to Brimscombe
Seems all a bit too good to be true:
Cycling past that spring alongside Bagpath,
Where an old Rodborough resident
Once slaked his thirst descending to Brimscombe,
Where […]

It was all so just so Just William perfect:
Egg sandwiches, crisps and lemonade
Tucked into your duffel bag,
Together with autograph book, green, red and black biros,
And Ian Allan trainspotter books […]

Now I’m not sure if there’s a debate here
About determinism and free will,
Or whether there’s just some sort of reflection
On 60 years spent going to the match,
That LS Lowry feeling of being lost in a crowd […]

I felt as though I were in a poem:
‘Afternoons’ by Philip Larkin –
I was off to sheltered accommodation
To see my mother-in-law (91),
Wishing a ‘Good afternoon’ to residents
Out for their slow afternoon […]

The day started well enough: a walk to town
In the soft light of soft autumnal sunshine,
Ridge and furrow with kine in the fields;
Drunken Swindon fans trying to walk straight,
Whilst Lord John bantering with […]

When I was a kid, I lived for football.
Kicking a ball against a wall,
Playing in the road, using street names as goal posts,
Playing ‘Five and In’,
Practising and practising and practising,
Until it got too […]

Ye Prologue:
There’s an old radical tradition
Of beating pots and pans in the street,
Making a public din
(Rather than a private dinner),
Ringing bells, banging pans, blowing horns,
With domestic utensils u […]

When the working class was first given the vote,
The Home Secretary said:
‘We must educate our masters’;

The result was the Education Act,
Which resulted in elementary schools,
Throughout the cities, tow […]

It’s possible to shout that in umpteen different languages
And still mean it.
‘Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman’
And what does that smell like?
It smells of Prehistoric Beaker Folk from […]

Buy George, bye George, by George,
It’s my jubilee too this year,
Fifty years of hopes and fears,
And while you couldn’t call my life
A total exercise in active citizenship,
You couldn’t call it total subje […]

At the end of the day
There are no easy games at this level
And two-nil is a dangerous lead
When It’s a game of two halves
But goals win games
And it’s a good touch for a big man
When parking the bus […]

Remember when the Likely Lads
Wanted to avoid the final score?
Well, this was the exact opposite:
A twenty first century digital version
Where we expect constant updates and news.

But don’t get t […]

In Perpetua

Mobile? Strange paradox

Immobile moves

It came upon a midnight clear, 
That glorious song of old, 
When angels bent down to the earth, 
And changed machine guns into harps,  
And turned leaden bullets into golden carols 
That drifted across no m […]

It was the perfect present,
Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly Annual,
A book that took me instantly back
To a brown linoleum floor
And a hot fire cold room winter,
Studying a dog eared package
Of 5 year o […]

You called on Christmas Eve afternoon,
Carrying an unwrapped parcel,
A gift brought from memory lane:
David Dangerfield’s dad’s football boots,
Slightly battered but proud and dubbined,
Though still sme […]

Summerbees

I knew of Mick and I knew of Nick,
But I didn’t know of your existence,
Until early one morning on the number 46 bus,
When I was reading a Swindon Town programme.

It was back in 1992,
And y […]