THE WORLD CUP
I did have an idea to celebrate 40 years since 1966. I wanted to get 11 poets to write 11 poems about the team of ’66. However, I couldn’t get a publisher or sponsor interested, so in the end I wrote a series of poems myself. They are everyman recollections that try and capture something of the men, the magnitude, the mood and the memories. You can click on the names on the image to see the poems.
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SIR GEOFF
( For Geoff Hurst )
You will always be Sir Geoff
The pride of Sixty Six
One from eleven
Hat trick hero
History maker
Legend creator
Never equalled
Never bettered
The crossbar, the goal line incident
And the Russian linesman
Fade evermore into the past
– they do not matter now –
As your legacy lives on and on and on
Forever remembered and celebrated
By those not even there
Or born at the time.
Generations of fans know your name
And so we think of the orange ball and the crimson shirts
Though your hat trick is incomplete
Without the soundtrack of those famous words
And yet, it can never be all over
The stuff of boy’s own dreams
Football for your country
It cannot get much better
It can never be all over
Three goals against our favourite foe
And the extra time of a World Cup Final
It cannot get much better
It can never be all over
And even if you had never been knighted
It would make no difference,
No difference whatsoever
Football royalty, our very own King
You will always be Sir Geoff to us
PAUL COOKSON