Football Poets

1 Game 1 Community Workshops + Kick It Out

Hi. Some close season summer break eh? What sun?

1 About 1 Game 1 Community Football Poetry Workshops & Links
2 2007/08 Workshop Dates with Crispin / Football Poets
3. Blog ” Workshop Days”
4 Playing For Success Conference & Kick Into Reading
5 Cup Final Petition
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1 ABOUT FOOTBALL POETRY WORKSHOPS & LINKS
We’re now taking bookings for Autumn/Black History Month/Kick It Out Week (October) 2007 & 2008. We run and book Football Poetry Workshops all year all over the UK. .This year’s theme for Kick it Out Week is again ‘One Game One Community.’ Following last year’s workshops and the support from Kick it Out, I am hoping to get around to as many clubs as possible in the month. The sessions are always great fun despite the seriousness of the subject. We look at the role of black and white players as role models and tackle the thorrny subject of Racsim in a positive way. At different clubs we look at specific black players and get to grips with what they might have gone through and endured getting there. Seeing kids come out of themselves, often from a shell of concepts and misconceptions, in front of their friends and peers is amazing. The best thing for me personally, at the end of it all, is seeing kids who’ve written poems, often for the first time , actually get up and perform them . On other occasdions, where possible
to see them on the pitch alongside the team with the KIO flag on the special match day is rewarding too . Do get in touch if interested.
For info on workshops contact
ctm@crispinthomas.orangehome.co.uk
or phone 01453 757376 & 07837 798463

SOME WORKSHOP LINKS & USEFUL ORGANISATIONS
Click on coloured link to view then close page or hit Back button

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.

To find out more about KICK IT OUT click here
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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2. 2007/2008 WORKSHOPS GIGS & DATES with Crispin
2007
June 07
7/8 WALSALL School Excellence
11 WARMINSTER Book Festival Kingdown Secondary School
19 EDGWARE Broadfields Primary School
October 07
Kick It Out “One Game-One Community Workshops”
2 LUDLOW Asembly Rooms & Schools
OTHER DATES TBC/ N PIPELINE:
Chelsea, Oxford OARD FC, Plymouth Argyle, QPR & Fulham.
Booking Now
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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3. BLOG-A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FOOTBALL POET
from Stroud to Morpeth and Plymouth..and from Sutton Coldfied to Mansfield , Long Eaton and Stratford On Avon !

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 .

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 .

WORKING WITH HEROES & VILLAINS IN MORPETH
For two days I was back in Morpeth, Northumberland at King Edward V1 , a thriving and high achieving grammar school where I work with 160 Year 9 pupils. 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. Two groups 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. 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. I worked for Kick Into Reading with around 700 children 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.

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 . 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 .`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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4.Kicking Into Reading & Poetry at The PFS Conference

Hi. I’m just back from the Playing For Success Conference in Stratford Upon Avon with over 250 delegates from Clubs and Study Support Centres around the UK where we swapped shirts, tales and poems right there in the bard’s birthplace. After a poetic main hall audience with Lord Ian MacMillan, Radio 4’s patron saint of football poets, I co-ran a couple of frenzied workshops with many of the study centres teachers and managers, encouraging them to promote the power of football through stories and poems . I work with the wonderful storyteller Pat Ryan as part of the National Literacy Trust’s brilliant Reading The Game / Kick Into Reading scheme .KIR has so far attracted 15 clubs, training coaches and academy players to tell stories and riddles reaching over 15,000 children in the process. Crispin

Do check it out
NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST & READING THE GAME
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5. . The Cup Final Ticket Petition Up-Date

Click here CUP TICKETS PETITION

Crispin’s ticketless poem was aired live on Cup FInal night on Alan Green’s 606 Show .”I think he’s right you know!” said Alan…..
to read Crispin’s poem click on title here

Flip Flops & Wind Chimes & Cup Final Tickets

Sadly we have to report not enough votes in yet to shake a flag at ,so please keep adding your names on the link below and send the link on to everyone . So , with sincere thanks to ourworldcup.co.uk (our award winning sister/brother site ), we are continuing the petition regarding Cup Final Tickets . “If you still care about the distribution of Cup Final tickets to real fans and if you would like to see a fairer allocation and an open breakdown of exactly where the other ‘missing’ 40,000′ FA Cup Final tickets go, please join is with your support. I seriously cannot go to the FA HQ accompanied by the world’s leading media and paparazzi with only 100 names.. can I….or can I ? Crispin

to SIGN THE PETITION Click Here

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