Football is a Grassroots Game – We all know what this means don’t we? It means that football is you know … a grassroots game, Whatever that may mean; It’s one of those phrases as understood but as imprecise As a John Beck long ball team, You know where the meaning’s going, but will it […]

It was a perfect day for a perfect journey, A trip back to the future on a train, Past ridge and furrowed fields About to lose their shape, Beneath the celandine and cowslip; Past mill race and turnpike and level crossing signal box, Past lock gates and shadowed bluebell woods And closed down stations with […]

The mossy stones askew with time and gradient’s push, No longer the mason’s pride and steadfast barrier To uncultivated Nature’s ineluctable advance, Meant that the old mill stream garden was no longer discernible. All paths and lawns and flower beds were submerged Beneath a sea and scented wave of wild garlic; The gazebo was now […]

Now I’m not a documentary fetishist, But I have a memo for Post-Modernists, And all the hyper-relativists, That school of deconstructionists, Including some post-structuralists, Who reject the power of narratives, And argue when not dreaming, That texts lack definite meaning, No true interpretation, Just personal divination – So why does the football table Mean you […]

On squall-struck Rathlin Island, Hard fast for Jura, Isla and Kintyre, Robert the Bruce took his rowboat shelter, In the sea splashed fissure of the dripping cave, And there he watched a spider throw a gossamer web, And vault-climb high on uncontrolled ambition, Far up the reticulated thread, Only to fall, and climb, and fall […]