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Poems tagged ‘opening day of the football season.’

Football is back again

joe morris

Saturday, August 16th, 2025

So here we are
Back on page one
The opening chapters
Football is back
From its restful
Summer vacations
At times it felt
As if the Beautiful Game
Had never been away
Swallowed up in
Excessive consumption
There were Club World Cups
The ladies once again
Euro champions
Obsessive, compulsive
Unrelenting, no time
To breathe, think, cogitate
Reflecting on last season’s
Epic exploits
When Liverpool romped away
With the Premier League
So art nouveau, decorative
One touch football
Cody Gapko and Mo Salah
Show stopping exhibitionists
And last night the Reds
Were all systems go again
Firing on all cylinders
Against the Cherries
Of Bournemouth,
Liverpool spit out the pips
And find their orchard of goals
4-2 on day one
Friday night festivals
Full of late summer sweetness
Never in doubt
A warning laced with threat
To the rest of the big boys
A shot across the bow
Anfield, always animated
And rarely agitated
But, shockingly, football
Took the darkest steps
Back into the evil shadows
Of unforgivable racism
It should have been a night
Of sombre recollections
As the late and great
Diego Jota
Who sadly passed
Only too painfully recently
Memories of his sainted life
Outrageously insulted
What on earth was that all about?
Leave those sounds in
The primeval swamps of yesteryear
Amid the dank chambers of
Idiotic ignorance where they belong
1970s chip paper
But let’s concentrate on August
Overtures and sonatas
That classical first sentence
Of the season
When every ground
Across the Football League pyramid
Resembles snooker’s finest green baize
Tables of lavish banquets
Time to gorge on goals
Not a blade of grass out of place
It’s that level playing field
Everybody off the starting blocks
Raring to go
It is just the opening day
No advantage or disadvantage
Simply Arne Slot’s
Premier League champions
Dashing and debonair
Dapper and distinguished looking
Up and running again
Bellowing at the top
Of voices,
Loud and proud
Still never walking alone
The Kop at the top of their
Endless game of pure
And puritanical football
But please no more repetitions
Of last night’s beastly
Throwbacks of football’s ancient
Acoustics when
Football fell into the
Fiery pits of hell
Of violence and villainy
Instead, let’s concentrate
On the virtues
And virility of the game’s
Masculine and feminine charms
Liverpool off the mark
With three points
Something to treasure
Again and again

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The Season Opener

Rowan Waller

Saturday, August 26th, 2023

The day has come, boys;
a long grey morning; fans gathering;
bus departing and a thousand radios crackling…
a-hundred-and-forty-one years
(if you want that added pressure)
that have led to what is happening
today!
“We Are National League!”
first time in our history;
the outcome of the season – dare I rhyme it? – a mystery,
but in the backs of our minds (let’s admit)
a hoped for destiny…
and even knowing the task ahead,
don’t we wonder if it’s meant to be…?

Of course we do! But boys, don’t dwell on that today…
Leave those thoughts on the bus,
park them to one side,
and yes, let’s take our shot at Aldershot…
But Hoops; let’s enjoy the ride.

#rowanthepoem

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Opening day in the Championship

joe morris

Sunday, August 6th, 2023

So football resumes in the lower sculleries
While the butlers and cooks downstairs
Work themselves into the ground
Porters and proletariat
Can only gaze with admiration
At the insanely wealthy elite
In the Premier League
But yesterday the Championship
Took centre stage
Formerly the old Second Division
In the days of tanners, sixpences,
Shillings when those lovely but
Now antiquated Red Routemaster buses
Are now but rusting remnants of yesteryear
And yet Saturday at 3 in the
Afternoon underwent
A brief resurrection
Blackburn in the heart of the Industrial
North of England brush aside the
Baggies of West Brom
Like dust under the carpet
Then the Robins
Were up at the crack of dawn
Tweeting sweetly
While Bristol City are
Held by Tom Finney’s
Once Preston Invincibles
Utterly melodious
At the height of summer
Then Middlesbrough
Come unstuck
In their own backyard
Against roaring, rampant
Lions of Millwall amid
Thorns and bushes
Of the Riverside
Boro now only a silhouette
Of their former self
Darkening shadows in
A forgotten world
Where once Manchester City,
United, Arsenal and Chelsea
Were as predominant as only
The best could be
And then Norwich
Content to live their lives
On trampolines bouncing
Precariously between the
Two top divisions
Beware of Delia’s rousing
Exhortations,
Get your act together
Canaries, defeat
Is morally unacceptable
Norwich promptly swot aside
Hull of the Humber
A bridge too far
3-1 to the Canaries
Norfolk birds in perfect tune
Oh Pilgrims gather together
On sacred Saturdays
Of course football is a religion
Plymouth Argyle
Where Michael Foot once
Gazed across Home Park
Wisely as only a parliamentarian
Could only possibly be
Pilgrims overcome yapping Terriers
Of Huddersfield who once
Reigned supreme in football’s
Upper classes
And Herbert Chapman
With League Championships
Repeatedly so
When football wore bowlers
And watch fobs
Football at its giddiest pinnacles
Arsenal too
Herbert you were heavenly
Now Stoke, also belonging to football’s
Dusty wardrobes
Top flight residents
For several decades
Sweeping aside the Merry Millers
Of Rotherham
Effortlessly so
Meanwhile, we notice
Stoke City desperately seeking
The greener pastures
Of the Premier League
Does anybody know a short cut
To the gold embossed lands
Of the Emirates, the Etihad,
Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford?
It’s the Bet365 stadium
It is you know
Stupefyingly sponsored
Incomprehensible but
Today’s generation
The Victoria Ground
Now resigned to a Victorian
Incarnation where horse
And cart once ruled the roads
Alan Durban who abhorred
The pretty fineries of the
Game may have just
Despaired
The Swans held to
Score draw
By Brum
Fear not Swansea
Nor Birmingham
It is but the opening day
Of footballing hostilities
No need to panic
Next May is in some far
Off country, county
And shire
Sheffield Wednesday
Re-capture something
Of their Premier League
Flights of fancy
But relegated Saints
Come calling on Friday
Evening
Southampton searching
For signposts to upper
Crust rooms of
Millions and aristos
Finally the Hornets
Of Watford
Full of sting and bite
Devour QPR
A tasty meal
For two
Football, yes
It’s back
Pangs of hunger
For victories too

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Source: https://footballpoets.org/news/poem-tags/opening-day-of-the-football-season/