And tie his laces up!
Creating Space
What is he doing that boy in midfield
With the innocent-looking face?
He’s losing himself in the midst of a crowd
Creating space.
How does he do it that ordinary boy
With no obvious surge of pace,
Find for himself on the crowded pitch
A private place?
The rest of the team and the other team too
Are happy to tackle and chase.
He strolls by himself in the midst of the crowd
Creating space.
Where has he gone to that ghost of a boy
With the unastonishing face?
How could he shift from the well-marked pitch
Without a trace?
The rest of the team and the other team too
Continue to tackle and chase.
He’s off on his own in a bubble of time
Creating space.
Soccer’s Strangest Match
It was the strangest match I ever saw.
Take the final score for instance,
Five-all – and one player got all ten of them,
With his head.
How often do you see that?
And the weather – unbelievable.
At the kick-off it was so cold
Half the players had overcoats on
Gloves and scarves – balaclavas.
Pretty soon one of the goalkeepers had a small fire going
In the back of his goal.
(Nothing in the rules apparently to prevent that.)
Then there was the inflatable goalie.
Under his overcoat, it turned out
He had some kind of rubber suit.
His manager was pumping him up from the touchline
Slowly, imperceptibly he hoped, to avoid suspicion.
After a while though this goalie was just lying there Sideways
His head propped up on his hand
Filling the goal.
Whereupon of course the opposition protested.
Meanwhile at regular intervals
And both ends
The amazing sequence of headers was going in.
The pitch had its peculiarities too.
A public footpath ran diagonally across it.
Stubborn old men with newspapers and dogs
Wandered casually in and out of the game.
A young mother in a hurry
With her baby in a pushchair
And concerned for her offspring’s safety
Kicked savagely at the ball.
Luckily she failed to score.
(There’s not much in the rules about that.)
The weather was beginning to fluctuate wildly.
There was a tremendous, freakish storm of hailstones.
The temperature rose thirty degrees.
The pitch, the players, the ball, the referee,
Linesmen, spectators
All were steaming, like hot pans on a stove.
Briefly the fog was so bad
Substitutes were coming onto the field unnoticed.
The goals continued to mount up.
The weather continued to amaze:
Phenomenal rainbows now
So brightly arrayed around one goal
As to create an almost religious effect.
It was into this blaze of light
That the goal-scorer headed his finest (own) goal
A thunderous effort that came back off the bar
And caught him again on the side of the head
As he was turning away,
Rebounding instantly
Beyond the irate and rainbow-hued keeper.
Meanwhile at the other end
The manager of the previously inflated goalie
Was still up to his tricks
This time – stilts.
The goalie
When his manager had done with him
Towered absurdly above his own crossbar.
Another remarkable feature of this game
Was its duration.
It lasted, half-time included
For four and a half hours.
The referee’s watch
Indeed all watches within a mile radius
Had been affected it seems
By the outlandish weather conditions.
So the players as you can imagine
Were dropping with exhaustion
When the final whistle blew.
Even so each team raised a cheer
For their sporting opponents
And both teams
Every last man and nun –
I forgot to mention her –
Summoned up the energy and grace
To carry the ten-goal hero from the field.
How often do you see that?
By the way, another thing I forgot
It was a cup match
Yes…
A week later
They had it all to do again.
The Footballer’s Love of the Ball
Grab the ball and boot it high
See it going up the sky
See it falling down and then
Boot it straight back up again.
Boot it high and boot it higher
Boot it almost out of sight
Send it shooting up at teatime
See it tumbling back at night.
See it rise and see it fall
Earth to sky and ball to ball.
Who Kicked Cock Robin?
Not I said the owl
Gazing down sleepy-eyed
I’m not that kind of fowl
And we’re on the same side.
Not I said the bee
Buzzing back to his hive
Cock Robin kicked me
And then took a dive.
Not I said the grub
My excuse is complete
I was only a sub
And – I ain’t got no feet.
The Song of the Referee
When the teams are yelling
And you can’t think what to do
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
When the crowd goes crazy
And the one they hate is you
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
Keep your spirits high
Look your troubles in the eye
And when times are hard
Show your woes the yellow card.
When the teams are snarling
Like a pack of carnivores
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
When the crowd is baying
And the blood they want is yours
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
Smile away that frown
Never let it get you down
Raise your glass and raise a laugh
Give those griefs an early bath.
When you’re homeward bound and find
Some blighter’s pinched your coat
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
When upon your windscreen
There’s a traffic warden’s note
Blow a little whistle
Blow a little whistle.
There’s more to life than this
Give your wife a kiss
Grab the baby, feed the cat
Phone your old mum for a chat
You’re a part of all their plans
Yes! Even referees have fans
And blow a little whistle.
My Favourite Goal
Not Beckham’s astonishing long-range chip
From the halfway line v. Wimbledon.
Nor Carlisle’s goalie’s winner
(His name was Jimmy Glass)
Last match of the season
In added time, ninety-fifth minute
All twenty-two players
in Plymouth’s half
Saving his side from relegation.
His own comment: It fell to me,
Wallop, goal, thank you very much.
Not Bergkamp’s perfect strike
High ball dropping over his shoulder
For Holland in ’98 v. Argentina,
Nor even one of my own rare efforts.
No, no, my favourite goal
Was scored at the City Ground
29th November 1989
By a little Nottingham Forest winger
Named Gary Crosby.
And me a West Bromwich Albion man.
An attack had broken down.
Man. City’s keeper had the ball
Preparing to launch it upfield.
Crosby came nipping in behind him
Unobtrusively, on tip toe it seemed (Sh!)
And headed it, neatly
Clean as a whistle (no whistle)
Off the flat of that flabbergasted goalie’s hand
Held out like an attentive waiter’s tray
And tapped it in the net.
A lovely goal, the charm of it, yes
The wit of it. Thank you very much.
Dream Football
Dream football is the harder game
The grass is devilishly long
And growing
Fish appear in the trainer’s bucket
Your mother has set up a small shop
On the halfway line
You are obliged to play in your underpants.
The Famous Five-a-Side
The early morning sun beams bright
Into our uncle’s cottage kitchen.
Uncle himself researches in his study
Our parents are conveniently absent.
We breakfast well on eggs and toast
Get changed into our freshly-laundered kit
Pick apples in the sunny orchard
Pack boots and buns and lemonade.
The village street is oddly quiet
Anxious faces at the bread-shop window.
There is a rumour of strange goings-on
Burglaries… a missing necklace.
The pitch upon the village green
Still sparkles with its morning dew
Except that is for one mysterious patch.
We fasten Timmy’s dog-lead to a bench.
Descending from a battered van
The opposing team are not what we expect.
Older and scowlin oddly kitted out
Their goalie has an eye-patch and a beard.
The ref too has a sinister air
Arriving out of breath and with a limp.
He keeps the ball clutched closely to his chest
And seems unwilling to relax his grip.
‘This lot aren’t Barford Rovers, that’s for sure,’
We whisper as we line up on the pitch.
Julian pretends to tie a bootlace up
And tells the rest of us he’s got a plan.
The game begins. Their strategy is odd.
They crowd around the ball and hardly move.
The referee limps slowly up and down.
The bearded goalie smokes a cigarette.
Then suddenly we hear a sound
A hollow croaking voice beneath the grass.
A trap-door in the turf begins to rise
And reaching up around it comes… a hand!
George boots the ball now high into the air
It ends up in the smoking goalie’s net.
His team mates oddly chase it in,
The hobbling referee not far behind.
‘This is our chance, chaps!’ Julian cries.
We charge then at the crowded goal,
Unhook the net and drop it on them all:
The spurious players and the bogus ref.
Meanwhile up from his dungeon cell
One plain-clothes CID man stumbles forth.
‘Well done you fellows – excellent!’ he gasps.
(This was more ‘undercover’ than he’d planned.)
‘This is the Melford Mob,’ he says.
‘Been on their trail all year.
I shouldn’t doubt there’ll be a big reward.’
‘We knew they were suspicious,’ George declares.
Another van appears: the Black Maria.
The losing side are bundled in.
‘You blasted kids!’ the captured goalie growls.
Brave Timmy barks as they are driven off.
That little dog now trots towards the ball,
He sniffs and scrabbles at it with his paws.
‘He wants to tell us something,’ Anne explains.
Yes – have you guessed? – the necklace was inside.
Back home to Uncle’s cottage, time for lunch.
There’s sausages and chocolate cake and squash.
‘Good game?’ says Uncle, peering round the door.
‘Oh absolutely yes!’ cries George. ‘We won!’
May Pitches
In the long-shadowed evenings
Final games are played
On rutted dusty pitches
Worn down in places to baked mud
And new grass greening the wings.
Flaked paint on the goalposts
Fossilized stud marks in the ground
Rapidly fading touchlines.
Close by, secure within a frame of ropes
A fresh flat cosseted square
Awaits its turn.
The last offside hangs in the air
A cuckoo from a long way off cuckoos
And farther still and fainter
The first howzat.
1966, or Were You There, Daddy?
In the fabulous year of ’66
The year beyond compare
When England carried off the cup
Dear Daddy, were you there?
Yes, my son, I was there.
When Bobby Charlton ran midfield
And Hurst leapt in the air
And Peters drifted down the wing
Dear Daddy, were you there?
Yes, my son, absolutely.
When Nobby Stiles snapped at their heels
And Wilson played it square
And Gordon Banks was flying
Dear Daddy, were you there?
Yes, my son, no question.
When Bobby Moore was in control
And Ball was everywhere
And Beckenbauer was trouble
Dear Daddy, were you there?
Yes, my son, I really was.
When England carried off the cup
And anthems filled the air
And Wembley was the place to be
Dear Daddy, were you there?
Oh yes, my son, oh yes, oh yes
Oh yes I was really there.
When Bobby Charlton ran midfield
And Peters played it square
And big Jack Charlton headed out
And Hunt was everywhere
And Cohen tackled like a tank
And Beckenbauer showed flair
And Gordon Banks was flying…
flying
Your dad, Oh-he-was-there!
The Lovely Ball of Leather
About a mile North of Preston
On a cool November day
A team of boys plus substitutes
Was setting off to play.
They sat there in the minibus
Just gazing straight ahead
Listening to their manager
And this is what he said.
O boys, he cried, O fellas
I couldn’t ask for more
You run your little socks off
Though you never seem to score.
But I know you’ll keep on trying
You’ll strive and strain and sweat
Till that lovely ball of leather
Goes flying in the net.
Just a little West of Bromwich
In
the January rain
That selfsame team of players
Was on the road again.
They crowded in the minibus
As it carried them away
While their manager-cum-driver
Had these quiet words to say.
O boys, he cried, O fellas
I’ve got this rotten cold
My knee’s a bit arthritic
And I’m really rather old.
But I know I will recover
My life’s not over yet
Till that lovely ball of leather
Goes flying in the net.
In a lay-by South of Hampton
On a balmy April night
When the road was dark and empty
And the sky was starry bright,
A team of boys plus substitutes
Was sitting in the bus
Eating chips and burgers
While their manager spoke thus.
O boys, he cried, O fellas
I knew that you could play
I knew the gods were with us
And we’d get a goal some day.