Football Poets

The FA Cup first round

Oh we can see it now
Feel it, hear it,
The swaying of the trees
That lightly brush over
The dripping, naked branches
Floodlights gleaming hospitality
From the cosy intimacy
Of the FA Cup
Yes folks, the FA Cup
Returns to the yearly
Banqueting suite
Of football’s finest
And most ravenous appetites
Like that dear old friend
From across the Atlantic
We know so well
It’s the first round of the FA Cup
Oh that hardy perennial
That flourishes on
Whispering breezes from the coast
And then back to football’s
Friendliest villages
The non Leaguers smiling
Warmly from their
Snug timber thatched pubs
Tapping tantalising tobacco
Pipes of hope and belief
Onto well scratched tables
Where once foaming pints
Toasted the likes of Yeovil
Who once shocked the world
Against the mighty Sunderland
Shortly after the last blasts
Of Post War England
Scarred and ravaged
But never beaten
There was Blyth Spartans,
Leatherhead, Sutton when
They were just part time
Unknown and the epitome
Of Non League modesty.
And yet on Sunday
It’s the Essex Riviera minnows
Of Maldon and Tiptree
Against Robbie Williams Port Vale
Definitely meant to entertain you
But don’t forget those other
Potential Essex giant killers
Of Chelmsford City pitting their wits
Against Braintree
Essex neighbours and perhaps
Kindred spirits
Can we borrow your lawnmower?
We’ll put the kettle on for you
Milk and two sugars
Make yourself at home
It is the FA Cup, after all
And everybody bows to its
Superior knowledge of days gone by
When Second Division Sunderland
Crushed the odds when high flying
Top flight Leeds United
Once League Champions
Were put in their place by
Sunderland’s beige raincoated
Bob Stokoe who galloped
Onto the old Wembley thick
Lush green acres
And hugged Monty or
Jim Montgomery since
The Mackens had won the FA Cup
Then five years later
The fenlands of those country yeomen
Suffolk’s silkiest
Ipswich outgunned the Gooners
And the Tractor Boys
Cultivated their classic
Springtime harvest
Roger Osbourne never looked back in anger
Or was it his distant relation John
There’s that crackerjack of
A Yorkshire derby
Barnsley against York
No holds barred there
This one could go to the wire
Bolton against Huddersfield
The Wars of the Roses reincarnated
The pure Buxton waters fresh
From the Derbyshire mountains
Buxton against Chatham
It is the essence of the
The FA Cup in its
Most enchanting microcosm
The meat and potatoes
Of the FA Cup’s beating heart
Pumping testosterone,
Its bristling, rugged,
Earthy authenticity
Its grassroots,
Its earliest Victorian roots
Where it all started
The formation, its infant cries
When trotting horse and carriages
Transported football’s factory folk
And the Old Etonians rubbed shoulders
With the Preston Invincibles
The FA Cup was the elusive trophy
We did hold high once, twice or
Maybe three
But nothing since
We can hardly remember
It must have been the Boer
Or Crimean war
Oh the FA Cup
First round
Welcome back
May seems a distant dot
On the horizon
But on the last day of October
We can but dream and imagine
Over and over again

Be the first to leave a comment »