Football Poets

3 Poems Of The Week & Football Poetry Workshops

3 Poems Of The Week & Football Poetry Workshops

1.3 Poems Of The Week
2.About Workshops & Links
3.2007/08 Workshop Dates with Crispin / Football Poets
4.Blog ” Workshop Days”

1 POEMS OF THE WEEK
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And we thought it would dry up in the close season..
So many good offerings this week..which to choose ?
On heart reaction and because it’s sunny I’m going with
1 Memories of grandads in old wooden seats at The Cottage…
2 Genoa back in the top flght again….
3 Over-paid over and tired players unable to get over it.. Crispin

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06 Jun A Long Walk With My Family Brian Reeves

10 Jun We are Genoa Denys E. W. Jones
cc
10 Jun kevin raymond I’m Sorry, But.I’ve Heard This One Before
I’m Sorry, But.I’ve Heard This Before
kevin raymond
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2 ABOUT FOOTBALL POETRY WORKSHOPS & LINKS
Now taking bookings for 2007 & 2008. We run and book Football Poetry Workshops all year all over the UK. For info on workshops contact
Crispin Thomas ctm@crispinthomas.orangehome.co.uk
or phone 01453 757376 & 07837 798463

SOME WORKSHOP LINKS & USEFUL ORGANISATIONS
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WORLD CUP WORKSHOP BISHOPS CASTLE PHOTOS 10.6.06 Pics from the day with students and Crispin.

EVERTON FC ‘ Making A Difference’ Workshop Review Crispin ThomasSession at Everton FC Extra Time Study Support Centre

FOOTBALL STUFF Crispin Thomas BBC Video Nation (Real Player) Crispin at Forest Green Rovers with rap, Casio and a ball.. as you do.

Kick It Out
Show Racism The Red Card
Football Unites Racism Divides
Pioneering Black Footballers
Women’s Football-A Brief History
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3. 2007/2008 WORKSHOPS GIGS & DATES with Crispin
2007
May 07
25 STRATFORD -ON-AVON Playing For Success Conference
June 07
7/8 WALSALL School Excellence
11 WARMINSTER Get Into Reading
19 EDGWARE School
2008
Feb 08
20/21 MORPERTH King Edward V1 School
contact
Crispin Thomas ctm@crispinthomas.orangehome.co.uk
or phone 01453 757376 & 07837 798463
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4. BLOG-A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FOOTBALL POET
from Stroud to Morpeth and Plymouth..
and from Sutton Coldfied to Mansfield and Long Eaton!

Hi again .Time to subject you to a Workshop day (well 10 days actually!) in the life of a football poet….on the road and on the rails !

SO WHAT’S A DAY REALLY LIKE?
I felt it necessary to dispel the legendary Take That / Frank Lampard / Ronaldo / Wannabe Football Poet Laureate celebrity image and myth of limos, riders and executive treatment that it doesn’t entail . The people who invite me however are great everywhere I go, and somehow, always manage to accommodate my demands for chairs in a circle , interactive white boards, overhead projectors, laptops, PCs for the kids, flip charts, pens , paper and a nice space to work in .

A HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY IN MANSFIELD & LONG EATON!
I’m just back from a great school in Sutton Coldfield where I ended up performing with 15 children reading their rhymes and raps for the first time in front of 400 in the main hall . Next stop was an invitation from Mansfield Town FC’s Stags Study Support Centre to work in a local Primary school for World Book Day . We made tiny books and wrote football poems and thoughts for aliens, and for anyone who would listen. In the evening it was a mad dash to Long Eaton where I worked with Jim Sells of The National Literacy Trust and a local puppeteer/story teller for Blokes On Board , complete with a PC and library-equipped bus!” This is an on-going Reading Champions project to inspire “blokes” to go into schools to encourage boys to read . Recent surveys and figures show boys sadly lacking in the literacy quality stakes and way behind the girls.

WORKING WITH HEROES & VILLAINS IN MORPETH
I tend to work a lot with Year 5 & 6 , a great age for inspiration and ideas, but for two days i was back for the third time in Morpeth, Northumberland at King Edward V1 , a thriving and high achieving grammar school where I work with 160 Year 9 pupils. As part of Citizenship , the theme of the two days is ‘Heroes and Villains’, with a strong focus on Martin Luther King . Each student brings in a picture of a hero and villain. Mine were : Roy of The Rovers and Darth Vader. After performing my poems on Roy and Lord Vader to get the day going, I then worked with two groups for the day writing poems on chosen heroes like Alan Shearer, Slash from Guns n’Roses and Martin Luther King to notorious villains who included (bizarrely) Sponge Bob Square Pants, Osama Bin Laden and Hitler. We also created a 15 minute play which we performed in front of 160 pupils about the life of Arthur Wharton ,the first ever black professional footballer in the late 1800’s. Big thanks to Liam and Amy l for inviting me again , for the great veggie curry and for looking after me. That night , we then drove for two hours
to watch Boro play Bristol City in the FA Cup. ( See my Down By The Riverside poem at the end of this ramble). Sensible relaxed stewarding and ticket prices (£10 for adults £5 for children!) and more screaming kids than an international swimming gala created a great and electric vibe. Many a club could take a lesson . So much so, that when the game went to penalties and loads of kids rushed like in days of yore to claim a stand up vantage point behind the goal, no-one stopped them! 19 hours later, (after a 6.30am start) we got back to Rothbury, near the Scottish Border ,where I was staying at 1.30am . Up next morning at 6.30am again to make school by 8am . Finishing at 3.20pm it was a sleepy two hour wait for my 5.30pm train home to my cottage Then a 4 and
a half hour train journey back to Cheltenham. On finally arriving it’s a
dark and windy 45 minute drive to Stroud listening to Bolton vs. Arsenal in extra time. Rock ‘n Roll!”

KICKING INTO READING IN PLYMOUTH
The following week found me in Plymouth where I spent 5 days a great time . What a buzz in the town and schools there right now. Argyle are at home to Watford in the 6th round , just two games from Wembley and Europe! So from Feb 19th-23rd, I worked for Kick Into Reading with around 700 children over the whole week, alongside some great Plymouth Argyle trainers and coaches (Mark and Debbie) and one director (David) Football poems , riddles, games and stories all week-long in Plymouth libraries.I managed to catch the Porto vs. Chelsea match in a huge Australian bar called Walkabout with about 400 Liverpool fans watching the game with Barca on a massive screen at one end ,whilst myself and 3 other Chelsea fans watched a tiny screen with no sound in the corner…. as usual!

DAILY WORKINGS
When you start to link in as a one-off visitor with the intricate daily workings of modern schools, prisons, libraries, football grounds and study support centres the timetables, paperwork and lesson plans never fail to surprise . I always underline from the kick off, that I’m not a teacher, although I did teach once for a year with
paperwork galore (The Music Industry to BTEC level) at Swindon New College, until they lost their funding and me in the process. As a result I now involve no paperwork in the setting up of my workshops , in the effort to leave as small a football poetry footprint as possible and to stay as carbon free as possible. To this end, I go everywhere by train which is often veryearly and incredibly stressy , but far more relaxing than dnving .One does along the way , become more than familiar with those eerie tannoy recorded train announcements at Birmingham New Street “We’re sorry to announce that the 16.45 train to Stroud has been delayed by approximately 3 hours”

The workshops are run on fun lines. All I want to do is inspire, from getting students thinking , writing and reading to getting up and performing work with gusto in front of their giggling mates and just having fun with words. I like sending myself up, and love making the kids laugh (at me), my silly poems, and to make them think a little deeper and laterally maybe. I want them to take the time to compose stuff on their own and then wax lyrical. To think and feel in the words of Catherine Tate..”I can do that ”

For the younger ones, we usually kick off with an action football poem or song that everyone can join in on, and I’ll do some stuff of my own . We use PowerPoint images to highlight any and everything to do with football. We are there to explore football , to write poems as a group and individually. One hour school based lessons are a mad rush, and I prefer longer with each class for quality, but however long , we always somehow get there. We always include a spontaneous group poem on the flip chart or white board (or blackboards in Porto) and usually leave about 15 minutes to perform them all. Here’s a poem I wrote on the way home from Morpeth opposite some bloke who got on at Leeds and kept snoring. It’s about my first ever Cup visit to Middlesboro FC. Allegedly! Go well! Crispin

15 Feb Down By The Riverside Crispin Thomas

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