Clerihew corner (sport edition)

by Harry on November 15, 2017

Clerihews explained here.

This week, we have a sporting edition. Now, there is a slight problem here: I am only interested in one sport. However, my son’s irrational obsession with American Football has at least provided me with one subject (and my son, to my surprise, approved).. And I think I may have composed the first ever clerihews about women cricketers. You, the readers, are entirely welcome to write clerihews about one of the lesser sports — indeed, I hope you will!

Football:

Ha Ha Clinton Dicks was cursed
With a name that made him burst
Out with laughter whenever it was said
So he changed his name to Fred instead.

Cricket:

Elyse Perry
Makes Australians merry
As she dashes
England’s hopes to regain the Ashes

Than Moeen Ali, the spinner
Few cricketers were ever thinner;
Beefy and Freddie in fact
Were, not infrequently, fat.

Boycott was never out
But he wouldn’t clout
A ball for six
Even when his team was in a fix. [1]

Geoffrey never scored runs too fast
In matters of style he was often outclassed
But with steely rumination
He went about accumulation

When considering Alex Blackwell
The selectors have not checked their facts well
She scores tons of runs, so in the absence of Lanning
Why the hell isn’t she Australia’s captain? [2]

[1] He actually did hit eight 6s in Tests, half of them in 1973.
[2] This one was, obviously, written before the start of the Ashes series.

{ 48 comments }

1

TheSophist 11.15.17 at 3:55 pm

Alan Knott
Took a lot
of stumpings and catches
in many test matches

2

TheSophist 11.15.17 at 4:01 pm

Wide receiver Art Monk
Playing piano went “thunk”
He wasn’t melodious
unlike cousin Thelonious

3

NBZ 11.15.17 at 10:00 pm

There goes Brian Lara
More runs than you can fit into a para
When he thought to flash his bat
Even the greenest pitch would look flat.

4

NBZ 11.15.17 at 10:08 pm

Billy Bowden
Lords over many men
For when he raises the crooked finger
The batsman, alas, may not linger.

5

Retaliated Donor 11.15.17 at 10:17 pm

Jerry, Bobby, Als Sr. and Jr., Johnny, and Robby Unser
All raced in the Indy 500 once or
More than once. Of the Unsers, Al Sr. won most, and yet he
Never won at Daytona, unlike fellow four-time Indy champ Mario Andretti.

6

Alan White 11.16.17 at 12:42 am

Cricket may have a Brighouse
but please allow me to douse
the homophonous “Dicks”
salva veritate with “Dix”.

7

WilliamCycle 11.16.17 at 2:37 am

Celebrations swept across Australia Wednesday as voters emphatically endorsed same-sex marriage after more than a decade of divisive debate, and political leaders immediately began moves to enshrine the historic shift in law by Christmas.

Thousands of marriage equality supporters took to parks and squares across the vast country, hugging, dancing and singing under clouds of glitter when the results of the two-month-long postal survey were announced.

Revelers wrapped in rainbow colors swarmed the entertainment districts of Sydney, Melbourne and other cities, closing streets as the party continued late into the evening.

Almost 62 percent of the 12.7 million people who participated voted “yes” to the question: “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”

Just 38.4 percent voted “no”, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which carried out the poll.

Nearly 80 percent of eligible voters took part in the poll, with the “yes” vote winning a majority in all of Australia’s states and territories.

(catalog printing printing in China).

8

oldster 11.16.17 at 3:15 am

Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah
carbo-loads on carbonara
or a ragout from a slow pot.
Once he wins, he does the Mobot.

9

oldster 11.16.17 at 3:42 am

Young Sebastion Coe
could really go!
Age has slowed him, but despite
his bunions, they made him a knight.

10

Neville Morley 11.16.17 at 5:11 am

Ole Einar Bjørndalen
Can still, at 43(!), contend with the best of them.
But it’s really, really hard
To beat Martin Fourcade.

11

Thomas Lumley 11.16.17 at 5:19 am

Greg Chappell and Trevor
Shared a memorable endeavour
Their most famous trick, it
Wasn’t cricket

12

Thomas Lumley 11.16.17 at 5:26 am

For Maradona
It was a point of honour
For God
It was a bit odd

13

bad Jim 11.16.17 at 5:37 am

After the Babe, the Yanks were ruthless
but that didn’t make them toothless.
Gehrig gave them quite a show
and then came Joe DiMaggio.

14

bad Jim 11.16.17 at 7:25 am

Forgive me for this offering. I just saw it. It’s off-topic, doesn’t adhere to the rhyme scheme, but I’m fond of found art:

Thorp said Moore asked her if she’d go out with him sometime.
“I just kind of said, ‘Do you know how old I’m?”
“And he said, ‘Yeah. I go out with girls your age all the time.’”

15

bad Jim 11.16.17 at 7:46 am

The hurdler Edwin Moses
as everyone knows is
the one whose shoelaces came undone
and still he won.

16

bad Jim 11.16.17 at 8:20 am

Fastball Lefty Sandy Koufax
struck them out. No facts
contest the claims
that Drysdale also won some games.

17

Chris Bertram 11.16.17 at 8:30 am

Louis Suarez is football’s own cannibal
Skilled like Pele and determined as Hannibal
Nothing matters more than beating the keeper
Get in his way and he’ll sink his jaws deeper

18

Thomas Lumley 11.16.17 at 8:36 am

Richie McCaw
Led more World Cup wins than any NZ team had before
Except in the women’s game
Which isn’t the same

19

bad Jim 11.16.17 at 10:20 am

Kareem Abdul Jabbar
dominated b-ball here and afar
now he’s a columnist,
pretty thoughtful. What could be better than this?

20

Chris Bertram 11.16.17 at 12:59 pm

Harry Redknapp never managed Monaco
Or any other French team, as far as I know
But his dog acting as an independent agent
Visited often to harmonize her tax arrangements

21

RichieRich 11.16.17 at 1:34 pm

The sublime Vivian Richards
Would effortlessly tonk the ball yards and yards.
A protective helmet was never required;
I lost interest in cricket once he retired.

22

oldster 11.16.17 at 2:11 pm

Lumley on Maradona wins it. A near perfect Clerihew.

Caitlyn Jenner
way back when her
preferred pronoun was “him”
won medals at the gym.

23

RichieRich 11.16.17 at 6:05 pm

The 800m record of Sebastian Coe
Is one I just never thought I’d see go.
But, blow me, along came Wilson Kipketer;
And then David Rushida proved even fleeter.

24

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 7:55 pm

Jeremy Corbyn
Has trouble absorbin’
That Putin’s war games
Have sinister aims

25

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 8:03 pm

Tony Blair
Fell into the Iraq War snare:
Enlisted in Bush’s crusade,
Tony was played

26

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 8:12 pm

Michael Fallon
Now drinks remorse by the gallon.
He is here to report
That going after women as he did…isn’t a sport

27

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 8:51 pm

Tom Brady
Has it made, he
Has to endure a Sunday afternoon of bone-crunchin’
But gets to go home to Gisele Bundchen

28

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 8:52 pm

Abner Doubleday
In no way
Invented America’s national pastime.
I’m telling you for the last time!

29

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 9:09 pm

Michael Jordan
Is still lordin’
As “His Airness” —
There’s no fairness.

30

Jim Parry 11.16.17 at 9:23 pm

Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr
Could score.
It was a rare night when Howe hot,
Orr not.

31

Steve 11.16.17 at 10:29 pm

Ali, Moeen
Never met Gerald Cohen,
But had they done,
The latter would say ‘you are a brute and option lucky one’

(Yes, I know the first two lines only rhyme if you mispronounce at least one name, but the cricket/philosophy overlap was too good to waste).

32

oldster 11.17.17 at 2:20 am

Venus and Serena
dominate the tennis scene. A
loss for rivals to their reign;
for tennis fans, it’s a net gain.

33

TheSophist 11.17.17 at 4:21 pm

The giant named Andre
Going to school one fine day
Got a ride from a playwright
named Beckett. Yes that’s right

34

Trader Joe 11.17.17 at 4:31 pm

The great one Wayne Gretzky
Was never a student of Dostoyevsky
But delivered a criminal punishment
in the ways he could put pucks into nets

35

Petmalu 11.17.17 at 5:56 pm

Tony Blair
Fell into the Iraq War snare:
Enlisted in Bush’s crusade,
Tony was played

123moviesfree

36

Jim Parry 11.17.17 at 7:45 pm

Muhammad Ali said, No way that I am
Going to Nam
With an M16 and pull the trigger
Because “No Viet Cong ever called me ______”

37

oldster 11.18.17 at 3:16 am

#35 “Petmalu” is a spam-bot that copied an earlier submission and added a link to a dodgy site.

Please delete it!

38

Bernard Yomtov 11.18.17 at 4:50 pm

Aaron Judge
Bears only a small grudge
Against Jose Altuve.
He’s MVP? Oy Vey.

39

RichieRich 11.18.17 at 10:20 pm

Phil “The Power” Taylor. He’s from Stoke.
16 times world champion. What a bloke.
Treble 20s, double 8s
As British sportsmen go, surely one of the greats?

40

Mike Schilling 11.19.17 at 6:51 pm

Yankee fans’ love for Derek Jeter
Goes off the meter.
Before long MLB will name
Him the worst shortstop in the Hall of Fame.

41

Mike Schilling 11.19.17 at 6:55 pm

LeBron James does not wear vinyl
But travels much to get to the Finals.
For his sins
He loses more than wins.

42

Bernard Yomtov 11.20.17 at 1:45 am

@40

Pasta diving Jeter
Appeals to the Italian eater.
But the truly Italian rooter
Prefers the Scooter

43

Chris Marcil 11.20.17 at 3:19 am

I hope a double (play) dactyl is OK:

Hummbaby hummbaby
Jose Altuve
Better than many, but
Taller than few;

Led Houston to destinies
Quite astronomical
(Sorry, my Dodger friends —
Too bad for Yu.)

44

Mike Schilling 11.20.17 at 7:42 am

@42: Brilliant

45

Mike Schilling 11.20.17 at 7:43 am

And what better number for a baseball poem than 42?

46

Bernard Yomtov 11.21.17 at 2:13 am

Mike Schilling,

And what better number for a baseball poem than 42?

Indeed.

47

oldster 11.21.17 at 6:40 pm

Not sports, but topical:

Michael Dukakis
enjoys a turkey carcass
after giving thanks
he’s not riding tanks.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/11/25/michael-dukakis-loves-turkey-carcasses/0HQOSqiAfWBEdxh6di5ofM/story.html

48

bos 11.22.17 at 11:56 am

Mr Beckett when opening at cricket,
May have learned that when you snick it
And are given out for one,
Then there is nothing, nothing to be done.

Comments on this entry are closed.