Thompson 80
William Thompson
anfield
At my first game, I’m with my uncle
who saw the fatal crush at Lepping’s Lane
and dad who still remembers where he was:
the stretch of sunlit motorway, Radio 2,
the rising cadence of the casualty reports.
On the way, there are rows of vacant back-to-backs.
When we arrive, fear rises in my chest
like a Mexican wave. It’s the height of the crowd,
the turnstiles clanging like a cattle shed.
Later, when we go one-nil up, I’ll want to cry:
the sudden violence of my dad’s embrace;
my uncle’s celebration like a roar of grief.
William Thompson is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Born in Cambridgeshire in 1991, his work has appeared in print and online. His debut pamphlet, ‘After Clare’ (2022), is published by New Walk Editions.
William wrote the following about ‘Anfield’:
Strangely, this poem began with a video of Chris Eubank bellowing, with his eyes closed, as his great rival Nigel Benn slumps against the ropes at the end of their first world title fight. What struck me as I watched was how Eubank’s triumph could easily be mistaken for the primal agony of grief. I’d seen that kind of celebration before. I’d felt it too, for the first time, in the stands of Liverpool Football Club when I was seven. This poem tries to be about a lot of things but I think it starts — and ends — with what Keats expresses so well when he reminds us of the paradox that ‘in the very temple of Delight | Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine’.