Football Poets

The story so far

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So here’s the story so far
Rumblings of discontent
After Croatia and Ghana
Before the Democratic Republic of Congo
Muscled in on English feet
Let’s face it
This was never going to be easy
There were awkward obstacles
At every juncture
We feared as much
It is, after all, England
And we know what that means
Or we think we do
But this is the lumpenproletariat
With the emphasis on the lumpen
For the first hour
England were shocking,
Disjointed as a wobbly shelf
A mantelpiece that keeps dropping
Off the wall
England’s brief rejuvenation
After Croatia
Now in shreds and rags
Tattered and dirty
As an oily cloth
Discarded and left to rot
In your crowded garage
It was almost as if Dracula
Had met Frankenstein
In Sunset Boulevard
Sharp, bloody fangs
Sucking the life out of
England, woe England
For almost an eternity
Rice, Bellingham, Kane,
Guehi, Konsa, Anderson,
Then Saka and Gordon
Had their wings clipped
By the superior suppleness
And nimble athleticism
Of our friends from the Congo
Formerly Zaire
Who were once only narrowly
Squeezed out by bonny Scotland
In the 1974 World Cup,
But how we underestimated Congo
We somehow knew there would be
A twist in the tail
Of course this would be a
Labour of love
For the Three Lions
Congo take the lead
Surprise then stunned amazement
Among an ocean of red, blue and white
On the terraces
English fans pale as the
Proverbial ghost
Drained of all colour
Horrified then mortified
Sulky, sullen and morose
Refusing to register
What had just happened
An air of desperation
And devastation
All hope had gone
Seeping from
Tortured foreheads
But here was the familiar journey
We should have known better
This was not in the first chapter
Now what had happened to
The original manuscript
Stolen by Spielberg?
Surely not
England a goal down
Ad infinitum
Minutes became the half hour
Then the hour
Still reminiscent
Of a thousand slow motion replays
On late night Match of the Days
And Brian Moore’s wonderful Big Match
White statues almost immovable
Grinning gargoyles
Ugly as those prefab buildings
From the 1960s when Britain
Slowly emerged from 50s Austerity
Grimness and poverty
Like old fashioned Victorian schools
Falling apart
Crumbling monuments
In dire need of modern bricks
And mortar
Aching architecture falling
Into obscene obsolescence
No punch, no penetration
Then suddenly Barca’s new signing
Anthony Gordon gingerly trotted on
All change, new dimension
Suddenly England became the winged wonders
Sir Alf so vehemently abhorred
England, powering forward, surging into
Attack rather like the swarming bees
Of a traditional English summer
Electricity switched on
Houston we have ignition
Bellingham startled into life
Racing, darting, dinking, head down
This means business
With 10 minutes to go
Flash Gordon
Drove forward, engine on
Both feet, bamboozling
Deceiving, inviting his
Defender to dance
Before waving farewell to
The Congo back four
Standing the ball up
And then chipping floated cross
To Citizen Kane
Who must have seen this movie
A thousand times
Via 20th Century Fox
But now the 21st century
The Kane neck muscles
Thrust full throttle
And the header was a
Turner or Constable
A vision of artistic solitude
Kane on his own
Unmarked
1-1, parity restored, then
With momentum on their side
Walthamstow’s finest
Shuffled and twisted his body around
Like a man searching
For water in the desert
Then finding a river of gold
On the edge of the
Visitors penalty area
With the neatest of ball control
Kane swivelled and
Hammered then thrashed
The cleanest of shots
It’s in the net
The winner, surely
With minimum of backlift
Low along the ground
But power and direction
Pomp and ceremony
Arise Sir Harry
You’re a star, our saviour
Of Mother England
Always on the spot
England victorious
It was never in doubt

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