Football Poets

It’s now or never for West Ham

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So here we are
Down in the deep,
Dank and bleak
Basements of
Relegation spirits
Haunting the Hammers
West Ham,
Down in the land
Of ugly, evil echoes
Reverberating through
The broken edifices
Of forlorn foreboding
West Ham, falling like
A stone, plunging headfirst
Into the chattering chambers
Of yet more doom and gloom
Championship beckons
For your East End warriors
Where the likes of Spurs
And Leyton Orient
Are heaving with
Sadistic laughter
More gallows humour
But this is no stay of execution
Although the Black Cats
Or Mackems of Sunderland
Were swept away on a raging current
Of three goals on Saturday
And that was the only the first half
And yet for the hardened Hammer
Of well over 45 years standing
It still felt like a
Shuddering, juddering anti-climax
West Ham still stuck fast in
The sinking quicksand
Slowly disintegrating and then
Gradually vanishing from view
The Bees of Brentford
Were in no mood for generous
Helpings of honeyed largesse
A gift from West London neighbours
Nothing to cling onto
By way of consolation
Forest traipse through the crunching leaves
And branches of West Ham’s
Dogged defiance
But it’s still five points from
Safety and security
And it really does
Look like the 46 match sweat soaked
Marathon slog of the Championship
Could be sooner rather than later
No point in relying on
The Yorkshire grit of Leeds
Or royal visits from Palace
The piranhas are circling
Baying for blood
Next season
The London Stadium library
Will completely forget
To bring back the books
That haven’t been stamped
Since at least 1958
When West Ham were last
Promoted back to the old First Division
When Big Mal, Malcolm Allison,
Noel Cantwell, Vic Keeble and John Dick
Sung jubilantly all the way
Back from Boro
And yet 20 years later
Bonzo, Billy the great,
Brooking, Holland and Lampard
Dropped again into the second tier
Oh no, not again
The joyful ups and downs
Of relegation and promotion
Those infuriating fluctuations
Of fortune
It could only be West Ham
In a nutshell
Now thankfully Pacqueta
Has returned to the land
Of Brazilian sambas
Oh, what a relief
Perhaps Fernandes can be
The Portuguese jewel in the
Crown, he has the air
Of languid grace
That Lucas once possessed
With young Olly Scarles
And Freddie Potts.
Two of their own
Admirable members of the
West Ham academy
But will they be
Good enough to send out
The lifeboats of survival
To placid harbours and
Safe havens?
Taty Castelllanos and Pablo
Up front, maybe the ballast
That keep the claret and blue
Regiment, afloat and buoyant
Is it though too late?
Nuno, he looks too nice
To be the fall guy here
Quietly spoken
A sensible pacifist
Who seems to keep his
Cool when all seem to
Be losing theirs
But for the traditionalists
Oh Upton Park
How we miss your
Warm embrace of intimacy
Where every game
Seemed like home sweet home
The Chicken Run, the South Bank
The rousing brass band outside the
Players tunnel
It felt like West Ham
Lovely chapters of the
Melodious narrative
Of the West Ham story
Sadly relegation points
A beckoning finger
But you never know
Miracles do happen
And so much could
But it’s
Such an unsightly mess

3