I’ll be loving you always”
“I’ll be loving you always”
4 old ladies, sleeping in the ward,
I wait for mum to wake; a bored
Doctor asks a nurse if Swindon
Are playing today.
She tells him, “Doncaster, away.”
Mum wakes up and I hold her hand,
Then Nora awakes and sobs as she struggles to stand,
Singing “I’ll be loving you, always,
With a heart that’s true, always
Not for just a day. Not for just a year.
Not for just a week. But always.”
Then breaks down, “Nobody comes to see me.
I wish I was dead. I’m so unhappy.
I was going to throw myself out the window, I was.
But you know me. I don’t like to make a fuss.”
“I’ll be loving you always.
With a heart that’s true, always.
Not for just a day. Not for just a week.
Not for just a month. But always.”
The nurse shows Nora her exercise book,
Where each day’s events can be looked
At and remembered and I hear her say
“See, look Nora your son came yesterday,
He comes to see you everyday.”
Nora smiles and so does Dorothy.
She’s just finished her cold milky tea
And is having her hair done,
In a style that she liked when she was young.
So now the only person all alone
Is the tiny woman who’s all skin and bone,
Sleeping quietly in her chair,
Oblivious to the way that we now share
Conversation, laughs and chat.
“You’re a lucky woman to have a son like that.
I wish mine would come and see me.
But he’s after my pension and my money.
If you ask me.
Which you won’t. Nobody does.
But I don’t like to make a fuss.
I’ll be loving you always.
With a heart that’s true always.
She’s a lovely woman, your mother.”
“And you’re a lovely woman too, Nora.”
They laugh together, young again,
Just like flappers way back when
All the boys would whistle and stare
When mum and Nora would stand and dare
The would be dancers to ask them out.
But now that confidence is replaced by doubt
And abrupt melancholic silence.
I give mum a poster-poem collage for her bedside,
Words and pictures for her memory to ride
Her off to sleep and dreams and a happy time
Until she wakes again when the dinner trolley arrives.
I kiss her. It’s time for me to go back home
For all the football scores and answer-phone.
A one all draw and a takeaway.
Another spring-time Saturday.
“I’ll be loving you always.”
About This Site
Welcome to Football Poets -- a club for all football poets, lovers of football and lovers of (alternative) poetry. Discover poets in every league from respected internationals at the top of their game to young hopefuls in the school playground.
Publish your football poems here and then discuss them with your team mates and fans. We're archived by The British Library, so your masterpieces are in the safe hands of a world-class keeper. What a result!
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Latest Poems
joe morris
24th March 2023
Gacina Bozidar
22nd March 2023
joe morris
20th March 2023
joe morris
17th March 2023
Denys E. W. Jones
13th March 2023
joe morris
13th March 2023
Clik The Mouse
13th March 2023
Crispin Thomas
11th March 2023
Sharon Jones
11th March 2023
joe morris
10th March 2023
Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
10th February 2023 at 8:45 pm
I misspelt Jimmy’s nickname as it should be Greavsie. Typo !
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5th December 2022 at 8:11 pm
Stuart, you are not alone, in your dichotomy of doubt
but without dissention
you stand alone
in hogging our attention!
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16th November 2022 at 11:04 am
[Football on soiled turf]
This is a wonderful phrase which I shall be using from now on!
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15th November 2022 at 3:54 pm
Well said Crispin. One of the reasons for The Ball 2022/23 is exactly this – that FIFA need to know. The Ball is essentially a petition to FIFA to honour their commitments to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. They signed up; they should act. The Qatar tournament takes the World Cup in the opposite direction to that commitment. And 2026 looks like it’ll be even worse.
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8th November 2022 at 2:06 pm
Hi Guys
Re ‘Lets Boycott Qatar ‘ poem
You probably hate me banging on..and problably know (like me) that my/your not watching the World Cup in Qatar will make no difference.
Of course it won’t. That’s not the point.
OK someone might possibly eventually publish a minimal drop in terrestrial TV viewer numbers, but I fear that is unlikely.
But please above all, do go on writing poems about the World Cup, as/you we have always done. I hate to think a poem or two of mine might l make you feel bad about comenting on a game or country …or that I’ve put you all off about wanting to contribute.
So we’d love to hear from you and read your thoughts and observations, as ever on what’s going on.
Some of us have been here since Football Poets website birth/inception for the Euros 2000 ….
All my best wishes
Crispin
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18th October 2022 at 10:06 am
Shoot! (Something we’ve also been screaming in vain at our team all season !)
Great memories Joe . Before Shoot, it was Roy of the Rovers comic too, dropping through my letterbox.
Anxiously waiting each week to see if they survived in the mexcian jungle after an ambush..or a pre-season earthquake!
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3rd October 2022 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for the kind words Sharon. Yes, it was a shame with Billy Shako, but with five subs now being allowed, he might yet make it off the bench. Even if it’s just a cameo to close out a poem.
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2nd October 2022 at 1:49 pm
John, your new book is an absolute delight and more please. It’s a shame ‘Swapping Shirts With Shakespeare’ never made it off the bench, but quality football poets light up the writing fields like Roman candles. Go well.
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4th September 2022 at 12:42 pm
Great memories Greg. Took me right back.
Today I stand on a small terrace in the hills where I live watching Forest Green Rovers in L1, and keep up with Chelsea on highlights. It’s a far cry and a world away from those times when I lived as a child within walking distance of ‘The Bridge’ – just off the Ifield Road, which led to Fulham Road. The Blues were rubbish for so long, but we loved them and somehow we stayed in the old First Division for so many seasons. And of course we got to see Greavesie at his impudent best, scoring goals for fun. Mad unpredictable games where we’d score 4 and let in five.
The looming floodlights in the dark and mist on magic night games. The big games when the ground heaved.
I don’t think we ever realized how magical and incredible it was back then. The atmosphere and arriving there so early – like you said.. just to make sure you got in. Back when Bovril, tea and cake and roasted peanuts for sixpence a back were just about all on offer.
Good times.
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4th September 2022 at 12:37 pm
see above
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