Football Poets

FA Cup Final.

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So there it is Wembley
Arrives at its final destination
Kensington High Street
Fares please
As they used to say
In the good, old days
Chelsea back at the
Wembley Arch
For yet another FA Cup Final
You can almost taste
The texture and flavour
That sweetest piquancy
A vintage aroma
At the FA Cup’s ultimate
And clearest vantage point
It’ll be the FA Cup Final again
Chelsea and Manchester City
Once again reunited
In the game’s highest courts
Of law and order
It feels like it was fated
From the first round of
The FA Cup,
Chelsea, the home of
Art and fashion
London’s glitziest temples
Of glamour and now
Unquestionable greatness
Back to Back Premier Leagues
Nostalgia lives in the bones
And limbs of that first introduction
To the Chelsea dinner party set
In 1970, there was lovable
Chopper Harris, Ron was hard
As they came, steel and
Ruggedly impenetrable
Nobody seemed to get past
Ron Harris rod of iron
Leeds were promptly swatted
Away almost insolently
On Saturday’s saturnalia
Of song, wine and roses
For 1970, now read 2026
Cooke, Hutchinson, Webb, Osgood
Those now sepia tinted images
Dancing across our memories
Like Astaire and Rogers
Let’s face the music
Like Biblical scrolls
Yesterday the Chelsea of
Fofana, Santos, Joao Pedro,
Pedro Neto particularly
A striking adornment
At the Bridge of Sighs
But this time the sighs of
Pleasure and belief
Blue is the colour
Quite definitely the case
This time Chelsea will
Win the FA Cup
It’s in the stars
Nostradamus is convinced
Categorically so
Farewell Liam Rosenior
But let’s book a table
At the Chelsea
Village and harbour
And forward to Wembley
For the main, lavish feast
Caretaker Callum Mcfarlane
Best of British
Make sure the mop and bucket
Are securely hidden away
But before we go any further
Manchester City are in the
Other light blue corner
Still breathing style and class
Never knowingly underestimated
Hounding Arsenal like the
Proverbial nightmare
It’s the fourth successive
FA Cup Final
For City’s show boaters
And grandstanding gadabouts
Still full of spit and polish
Nico Gonzalez sends a ball of
Flame and then a shot
Of vicious venom
That sparkled and fizzed
In the gentle evening air
Of Wembley’s greenest pastures
The most stunning confirmation
Of City’s footballing
Beauty pageant
Arise Jeremy Doku
All fancy and fleet of feet
A winger’s masterclass
Turning the Saints around
Like a child’s spinning top
Dinky, jinking and shimmying
Twisting Southampton around like
Seaside candy floss
Nunes, Kovacic, Cherki,
Reinjnders a Dutchman in full
Flight, often towering
Above the unfolding drama
With the poise of ballet
At Sadlers Wells, setting
London’s most electric
Thoroughfares alight
With West End flair
Bernardo Silva now a veteran
Of City’s history and
Now remarkable heritage
Alt Nouri, John Stones
Still reading a game as
If it were some
Untouched novel
Fluent in his every touch
And so Chelsea and City
Meet in the biggest showdown
Of them all
Football’s most delicious
Concoction,
The FA Cup Final
Wembley awaits its
Grandest gladiators

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