Eleven Poems about Football

Football has accrued its fair share of sound-bites and foot-in-mouth moments. The poems in this anthology strike an altogether more subtle note and take us to the very heart of why a seemingly straightforward team sport arouses such passion and commands such lifelong devotion.

There’s a poem capturing the romance of children playing street football until it’s almost too dark to see the ball, and another in which going to the match is a rite of passage for an immigrant boy seeking to belong. There’s also an extra poem from the touchline written by editor Conor O’Callaghan. And, of course, there’s a poem depicting that iconic game played in no man’s land during the Christmas Truce:

“All these boys want to hear today Is the final whistle. Let them walk away.”

from ‘The Game: Christmas Day, 1914’ by Ian McMillan