What are the best poems about football?
“Are there many good poems about football?” wrote M Stapleton last week. “I’ve read a few anthologies and collections but very few stand out, aside from Paul Durcan’s World Cup ‘82.”
Where to start but with former Labour leader Michael Foot? Going from Merseyside shipping clerk to leader of the opposition is certainly a road less travelled, but Foot (himself a Plymouth Argyle fan) did just that, and in January 1935 was lucky enough to be present for one of the greatest games ever staged at Goodison: an FA Cup fourth-round replay against Sunderland the home side won 6-4 after extra time. The experience moved him so much that he wrote a poem about it – “Ode to Everton” – and sent it into the Liverpool Daily Post. Feast your eyes on this:
Dick Bird nominates “Pass the Ball Jim (for John Peel)” by Ivor Cutler. “It is a poem about football. Whether it is a good poem or not really depends on whether or not you like Ivor Cutler.”
Ben Wilkinson digs further: “I can happily report many modern poets have written on the beautiful (and not so beautiful) game. I’d recommend checking out Don Paterson’s ‘Nil Nil’, about the ignominious and tragicomic decline of a fictional Scottish football side; poet laureate Simon Armitage’s brilliantly titled ‘Goalkeeper with a Cigarette’; Sarah Wardle’s collection Score! (2005), centred around her time as poet-in-residence at Spurs; and Neil Rollinson’s ‘The Penalty’. My own debut collection, Way More Than Luck, contains a series of poems exploring the legends and myths of Liverpool FC.” Dave Kirby has also written many poems about Liverpool, and once lamented the gentrification of football in this poem called Jester’s Hats.
Away from these shores, Jordi Gomez points us towards ‘Ode to Plattkó’, in which the famous Spanish poet Rafael Alberti immortalises a Barcelona goalkeeper who played on after being knocked out in the 1928 Cup final, where Alberti was watching on from the terraces.
To end things on a glamorous note, Simon Brown puts forward the Nottingham poet Rory Waterman, who has wandered lonely as a cloud into the wasteland of lower-league football and emerged with the excitingly titled“Alfreton Town 0, Brackley Town 1 (89’)”:
Discover loads more questions and answers in the archive
More songs about games!
Further to last week’s discussion of songs inspired by specific games …
MA Kersley pumps up the volume on Coup de Boule by Sébastien and Emmanuel Lipszyc. “It’s about the 2006 World Cup final, with the truly magnifique translated chorus: ‘Zidane hit it, Zidane beat it, headbutt!’”
Andy Linehan recommends two songs: “The Real Sounds of Africa’s 13minute track Tornados v Dynamos (3-3) – it details the game in the title and includes commentary on the goals (plus the arrival of the President of Zimbabwe to watch the game). And to my mind the best ever football record, Pam Pam Cameroon by Macka B, includes references to Maradona and Roger Milla and the refrain ‘against the Cameroon
England were lucky, lucky!’”
Knowledge archive
“On 21 April, it was possible that, at the Sunderland v Burton match, both sides could kick off with a mathematical chance of survival but, by full time, each could be relegated. Have there been any examples of two ‘unrelegated teams’ playing each other and both going down at full time?” posed Mark Stephenson in April 2018.Christopher Vaughan got the ball rolling with an example from back when Manchester City were a comedic shambles instead of today’s Pep-fuelled turboelite Premier League champions. “On the last day of the 1997-98 season, Manchester City beat Stoke City 5-2 to condemn them to the third flight. Results elsewhere, however, meant a win was not enough for the Laser Blues (as they were known at the time, to promote their kit deal with Kappa) and they joined the Potters in what was then Division Two. The away fans serenaded the Stoke faithful with: “Going down, going down, going down … so are we, so are we, so are weeee-eeee!”
And Ben Lander took us to the Madejski Stadium on 28 April 2013 when two teams, who both needed to win to stay up, set about doing absolutely nothing to help their cause. “Reading and QPR started their Premier League fixture knowing mathematically they were able to survive. Both needed a win, a draw would send both down. It finished 0-0.” Whoops.
Can you help?
“Has there been a team who has been in every position in the table over the course of a single season?” asks David Esp.
“During Crystal Palace v Burnley, Ally McCoist and Jon Champion referred to Roy Hodgson’s age as the oldest-ever Premier League manager and second-oldest in football league history,” says Mark Stephenson. “Given he started managing Halmstad at 29, surely the length of his career must be close to a world record? Can anyone beat a 44-year managerial career?”
Eddy from Oxfordshire asks: “Following Diego Costa’s near-heroics against Barcelona on 30 June, has any player actually achieved the magnificent hat-trick of a missed penalty, an own goal and a red card?”
“The Derby County website says our record league defeat ever is 8-0 against Blackburn Rovers on 3 January 1891, and our record league win ever is 9-0 against Wolves which was on 10 January 1891,” says Rams fan. “So a plus-17 goal difference from one match to the next. Can anyone better that?”