Football Poets

Euro 2004- Summer Of Fluff & Football Love However Much The Swiss Roll but..is Beckham playing?

Hi
4 poems here on our beloved part & beautiful obsession with Euro 2004….I still find it hard to believe.. this site started just before Euro 2000 when we tossed a few footie poems into this space…and now here we are some 3700 odd poems later..funny old game football poetry..thank you..Crispi

1 NICE SHADE POSH – BUT IS BECKHAM PLAYING?
1HOW TO MAKE EUR-OWN SWISS ROLL MATE(Crispi Oliver Mix)
2.ONLY A GAME ( But Doesn’t Football Love Hurt)
3 EURO 2004- Summer Of Football Love & Fluff
4 EURO LOVE 2000-2004 (re-visited)

1 NICE SHADE POSH – BUT IS BECKHAM PLAYING?

am i alone in all this fun

is it just me or everyone

from minute one to ninety-one

when after three great games are done

I ask aloud but answers none

nice shades Posh …

but is Beckham playing?

© CT04
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2.HOW TO MAKE EUR-OWN SWISS ROLL MATE(Crispi Oliver Mix)

it furthers one greatly
to stay in one’s box
when playing in goal for the Swiss
or be caught way up-field
like a goat being healed
or just Heidi** and hope that they miss

but i love to see goalies go scrambling
like cops after runaway cars
in black and white movies
at twice the right speed
for they are the real superstars

no juggler or circus performer
could quite match the look on his face
but he kept the ball out
was it ever in doubt
with a header flat out but with grace

if you missed it then check out the replays
if you didn’t it’s really tough cheese
which reminds me to just stick to cheddar
especially on big days like these..

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3. ONLY A GAME ( But Doesn’t Football Love Hurt)

ok it’s only a game
but doesn’t football love hurt?
and even if you’ve never been in love
or felt pride
or understood the sweeper system
or maybe just hate the game
who among us is not shaken..
and here in Bath on Walcot Nation Day
on England-France night
if you were a tourist today
you might be convinced
this still wondrous Roman-Georgian city
always reeked of hot beer
and had been daubed forever
in red and white.. by George. perhaps

how proud to be British then
when every other car for three weeks
helps make fortunes for tacky flag makers
as a country unites predictably – apparently

but here in this drunken loutish ravey vibe
me – i take refuge in the children’s park
watch belly-dancing
and drink a Pimms for £2.50 from a plastic beaker
watch endless kids have faces painted with that cross..
for a change…and see hope in every young face

several hours later..
counting down the time with the sofa stricken millions
I ponder..why do we subject ourselves to this
and just how like sheep
as a team – as a nation – as fans we are

for here while these our so-called heroes
run round like children in the morning
that special first half of day
all full of hope and rush and bravery and style
how soon they fall
exhausted from the rushing
the heat and struggle
into the twilight of second-half
when full-time beckons like some dreaded bed-time call –
ovetired now and hanging on
and barely holding back the French tide
like Dover’s gorgeous cliffs
which incidentally – and excuse me
have never actually seen Bluebirds
Bluebirds are an American feathered community- apparently
according to Radio Four
dreamed up to be ‘over the cliffs’
by some dodgy Tin-Pan Alley bloke in New York
until pre-Beck days when another era’s sweethearts
Gracie or Vera and some fifties Toffee Tin manufacturer
adopted them and now we are stuck with them

I am reminded suddenly however –
on finding my Citroen surpisingly un-vandalised –
when some slurring union-jack draped drunken woman
apologises profusely
for her equallly inebriatred bloke
on his bumping into my sleeping grand-daughter’s buggy……-
that the only place i’ve ever seen bluebirds
was on the front of a Buffalo Springfield Again album
way back in the sixties..

which leaves us with this – our war-song heritage
with much un-stamped lion egg on our faces
but much to play for apparently..

driving home – my heart at half mast
like a droopy flag at Womad …or some royal funeral
shock loss and despair overcame me
and when bed finally found me
along with Butler Yeats Blake and the other greats before
then slept a troubled sleep did I
like Yoda finding himself suddenly at Disneyworld
surrounded by babies with mobile phones and dvd players strapped to their heads and those of their newly cloned friends …

I was heartened then on waking
by this lovely DVLA Newsflash warning..
which perfumed my Inbox today..

“In order to assist other motorists
in identifying potentially dangerous drivers
it is now compulsory
for anyone
with a lower than average driving ability
to display a warning flag

the flag (comprising of a red cross on a white background)
will be attached to the top
of a least one door of their vehicle.

for drivers of exceptionally low ability
additional flags ( eg one on each side of vehicle)
are now required

how delightfully apt – how ‘je ne sais Zidane’
and how fragile we are
as Sting once said
‘sting’ being the operartive word right now..methinks

but fear not and roll on the Swiss roll..
the Croatian play- station-.platform
and Spain in the quarters
and be strong
my children of the lager and the cross
above all remember –
“love shall win” (a la The Waterboys)

Crispin June 04
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4. Euro 2004- Summer Of Football Love & Fluff

as flowers reach for sun
and waves for the shore
so we strive
again – again
while flags fly from bars and cars
and children dream
a nation waits silent now
all longing for the day

familiar now – this patriotic feeling
bathed here in strange and endless sunlight
this ancient land of myth and fable
like knights of yore in deathly pageant
less bloody now but still the passion
still strong with fervour
and still the yearning
for some far distant glory

and you and i with beers and tears
and haggendaz
dorito dips and street-side chips
will watch and wait like spiders
in many coloured shirts
like flowers striving
toward the gold
clinging praying that we as one
embrace the vibe
and play the dream

and so it comes- one chance for all
lo – let the games begin
as hearts yearn and voices cry as one
for alll that’s fine
and all that’s good
no violence – just human spirit
rising as one in this
forever changing
still beautiful game
welcome to europe
welcome to football’s summer of love

as flowers reach for sun
and waves for the shore
so we strive
while flags fly from bars and cars
and children dream
a nation awaits- silent now
all longing for the day

Crispin June 2004
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5. EURO LOVE 2000-2004(re-visited)

another golden Euro football summer
these next weeks could make or break our love
the sun may be up in the sky a-shining
but I will be where Sky is in the pub

i’ve rearranged my life around the matches
i’ve had to quit some very awkward scenes
a festival a wedding and a party
to catch the lads and watch it in on the screen

seen Ireland throw it all away one summer
inside some smokey tent at Glastonb’ry
missed half a Madness gig for Maradona
to stuff us with a goal that shouldn’a been

i’ve made some bar turn over from Eastenders
i’ve done some pretty bad things down the line
the penalties – the Nevilles and the Waddles
no matter what – i got there ev’ry time

and i’ll spends days just waiting for the big one
the way i did when i discovered girls
but in my heart are three lions pounding louder
this football love’s the strongest in my world

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© CT jUNE 04

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