Football Poets

Sponsored stadiums.

We knew the day would come
Sponsored stadiums
Football finally loses its
Traditional textures
Its weekly, daily and monthly
Rosy cheeked complexion
Here we are everybody
It’s football with the
Commercial brand name
How preposterous
The Beautiful Game
Now jumping onto the bandwagon
Of the advertising trail
Whatever happened to Highbury,
Upton Park, White Hart Lane,
Goodison Park, Burnden Park,
Leeds Road, Elm Park, Millmoor
And the multitude of the majestic
Those household bricks of
Football’s architectural wonderlands
Where the game dealt with
Shillings, pounds, tanners and sixpences
When the game seemed to talk to us
With sense and intelligence?
But now it’s all so frighteningly
Different, beyond our comprehension
Bolton’s Burnden Park
Once their spiritual home
Becomes, wait for it
The Toughsheet Community Stadium
What on earth does that mean?
If anything at all.
Have Bolton finally been sold
To the sheet metal industry?
It hardly bears thinking about
Or newcomers to the Football League
Burton Albion,
The Pirelli Stadium
We’re tired of
Those car tyre connections
Simply mind blowing
No more punctures anymore
Burton, otherwise
You will go for one
Achingly funny but
This is where the
Game is taking us
The Emirates Stadium
Flying high to Saudi
Lands of free flowing fantasy
But we still think of
Halcyon Highbury
Where Gillespie Road
Met the timeless clock
On the North Bank
And good, old Arsenal
Once thanked Bertie Mee
For Doubles of League and Cup
We mustn’t overlook
Dear Reading
Briefly of Premier League status
And once residing in leafy,
Elysian fields of Elm Park
Trees suffused with charm
At Reading
Now the Select Car Leasing Stadium
To all Reading fans
Please remember to take your motor
In for a thorough service and MOT
Avoid those hard shoulders
And roundabouts
They’re just annoying
Or just hire out a Ferrari
Along those breathless Berkshire
By ways and high ways,
Sorry Reading, we still prefer
Those elegant elms standing tall
And proud of their place
Their station in life
Then there was the Pallet Track
Bescott Stadium
Football hijacked by grasping
Greedy gold diggers
Yes, you heard it correctly
But Walsall’s new home
This is real life
And far from made up
Now Walsall used to play
At Fellows Park
Genuinely, truthfully
We are now though in the realms
Of the ridiculous
Football and fork lifts
In the same sentence
More of an industrial warehouse
Than a football ground
Walsall now the home of pallet tracks
Deliveries of goals
Clearly noted and confirmed
And what about the John Smith’s
At Huddersfield,
Once Herbert Chapman’s healthiest
And finest reduced to
Alcoholic booze and
Mine is a pint of best
It had to happen and it has
A lager top, please
For my friend and family
Just one, you understand
Teetotal, but it’s
The John Smith’s in deepest Yorkshire
We mustn’t forget Rotherham
Nobody should ever overlook
Millmoor, tucked away
In the warm eiderdown
Of Yorkshire’s mistiest moors
Now the New York Stadium
That has to be a joke or parody
And yet Rotherham play
In New York, New York
So good they named it twice
Make sure you visit
Syracuse, please
But mock not
You’re having a laugh, surely
Rotherham, the birthplace
Of salt beef delis and skyscrapers
And big Broadway productions
Please tell us it’s a dream
And last but not least
The DW stadium
Football lends itself
To those playing legends
Who once made football tick
Wigan’s Dave Whelan,
We can only assume Springfield Park
Is now overgrown with weeds
Or luxurious apartments
Oh please where did
Football lose
Its endearing soul
And identity
Hidden away and
Never seen again

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