There was Keegan, Charlie George and all the great deeds
Of Shankly, Clough and Taylor, but a bevy
Of bosses failing over at Man U, then Leeds
With the heinous Billy Bremner and Don Revie

The aforesaid Revie ‘ran off’, failed to stand by,
When he missed out on the World Cup ’78;
And Alf Ramsey, four years earlier, didn’t qualify,
For which he too was judged past sell-by date

Dalglish came down from Celtic, Gray from Dundee,
Ardiles – Argentina, past the Equator;
Games were played on Saturdays, and never Sundays,
And teams warmed up to the tune, ‘The Liquidator’

Our ‘foreigners’ hailed from Ireland, Wales and Scotland!
They produced great players of style, and craft, and grit;
Just occasionally they did come, say, from Holland,
But those from other lands invariably were…not very good at all

No Sky Sports for us, and, no, no running update
On scores right round the country, spring through winter,
No, we’d have to wait to find out our own team’s fate
From ‘Sports Report’, or off the teleprinter

Barry Davies and John Motson ruled the commentary,
Brian Moore and Jimmy Hill the studio,
He who’d not long left as manager of Coventry,
Was there that much that he thought he didn’t know?!

Referee Jack Taylor took most of the pickings,
Self publicist Clive Thomas made the hat-trick
With that one who looked like something out of Dickens,
That biased little bugger, ‘R Kirkpatrick’

Lifting the F.A.Cup, that was the prized day,
We had leagues with proper names, One through to Four;
With big business and high finance years and years away,
The shirts bore just players’ numbers, and no more

It was really much the same with relegation,
It brought with it plain astonishment and tears,
But in those days, contrary to expectations,
Rubbish managers ‘managed’ to stay in post for years

The transfer record stood at just one million
(Which we thought even then out of control),
We wondered, what fee, then, for a Brazilian?
For a Pele, Cruyff, or anyone that scored goals?

Teams still played at their old, original stadia,
At Maine Road, at Highbury and at White Hart Lane,
With the crowd next to the pitch, what the hell made’ya
Blow tradition for to seek financial gain?

The tactics to stop forwards that some sides tried
Got increasingly controversial, ever blunter;
‘Chopper’ Harris, Tommy Smith over on Merseyside,
And Yorkshire, with old Norman ‘Bites-Your-Legs’ Hunter

There was naught but the one substitute for using,
A twelfth man, not a fourteenth, or fifteenth,
‘Gainst concussion, injury or facial bruising
(Though Joe Jordan played all match without his teeth!)

The toilets weren’t accessible where fans stood,
They’d have scoffed at prawns in sandwiches, and falafel,
So they’d piss in someone’s pocket if they could,
And crammed their face with meat pies, and supped Bovril

We wore bobble hats and scarves till they became frayed,
Inflatables were yet to cast their spell,
But we’d dropped the rattles of the previous decades
In favour of rosettes on our lapel

We sat on wooden seats, and strained our eyesight,
No video screens, and no instant replays,
No goal line cameras, all we had were floodlights
That fans climbed up on crowded derby days

The crowds chanted daft ditties from the terraces,
Like ‘We shall not be moved’, and ‘Que sera…’;
To offset which we suffered others’ heresies –
‘Up the Arsenal’ (‘Yes, right up yours! Exceedingly far’)

But, for all that, I am sure that we enjoyed it
Just as much as fans today, and, probably, more;
Our time was simple, had more heart and seemed less sordid;
We ‘lived and breathed’ football – my ‘final score’