Football Poets

Football Poets On MySpace+Inner Goal+Workshops

1 FOOTBALL POETS ON MYSPACE visit the new site
Football Poets on MySpace
2 Crispin’s INNER GOAL Book &
Crispin on MySpace listen to poems on-line
3 Football Poetry Workshops/Gigs 2008 Dates
4 About Football Poetry Workshops & Links
5. Blog ” Workshop Days”

1 FOOTBALL POETS ON MYSPACE!
Hi –
I’ve just set up a Football Poets page on MySpace.
It was initially set up for my own football poems (hence the name) but I wanted to broaden it out to reach people and writers on MySpace. I’ve added a slide show today and a few videos (Unlucky Alf and That Cup Final Ticket from The Fast Show) plus Greece v Germany (the Philosophical World Cup Final with Aristotle up front for Greece )and a prancing ref issuing yellow cards with dance and flair! Do check it out and also scroll down to see the
illustrious friends we have acquired already which include …… Benjamin Zephaniah, Diego Maradona, Fabio Capello, David Beckahm , Roman Abramovich, Rio Ferdinand, Tim Lovejoy and Bruce Grobelaar! .You’ll also find some of our own football poets among the Top 40 friends who have their own sites on MySpace including Attilla The Stockbroker ,Adam Horovitz, Albert Nyathi, Neal Zetter, Paul Tubb, Rosemary Dun and yours truly. You can leave messages there too and comments. Please do and let us know what you think . In the absence of a message board here it gives us another voice. Also if you have a MySpace page, do let us know and add us as a friend. I’m also including poems that appear on this site from themes that develop thoughout the year. At the moment, it focuses on the ‘atmosphere at grounds’ theme .I’ve added a map as of yesterday but to date the site has received 500 visitors in 10 days. Check it out it’s at
Football Poets on MySpace
Crispin

606 RANT-LINE
This poem was featured a week or so back…
Waiting For Sports Report Crispin Thomas

Why not phone in one of your poems. Just call 08700 100 500 anytime follow the options ..and make your poem loud and clear…and do tell them you are one ‘The Football Poets’ when you leave your name and location ! Our generic fame spreads ….

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2.
INNER GOAL
The poetry of football..a journey in rhyme
by CRISPIN THOMAS

Hi – Thanks to all those who have already bought a copy. Amazon sold out of their initial stock but now have more available. 100 pages containing 132 pieces of work: 66 poems 66 hakius and line drawings spanning 10 years of writing poetry about and 50 years of watching football (1957-2007)
Reviews:
“Poems in the street, in the ground and in the heart…
…poetry with balls. I read it cover to cover! !” Michael Foreman
“One of the pioneers of football poetry.Who ate all the pioneers”?”
Attila The Stockbroker
Published by Football Poets Books in paperback
ISBN 9780955 737602 £8.99

INNER GOAL is now available in 3 ways.
BY POST – ON-LINE OR FROM SELECTED SHOPS.

BY POST
We still have a few signed first run (pre ISBN )promo copies available at 7.99 + postage/packing (£1.51) first come first served!
Write to:Football Poets Books,4 The Retreat, Butterow, Stroud GL5 2LS
(Tel 01453 757376) enclosing your address+ a cheque for £9.50 made out to “OUT TO LUNCH ”

ON-LINE from:AMAZON BOOKS click here
INNER GOAL

SHOPS:
National Football Musuem ,Sir Tom Finney Way Preston PR1 6PA
e-mail enquiries@nationalfootball museum.com
www.nationalfootballmuseum.com Tel 01772 908442
Stroud Bookshop , 23 High Street ,Stroud 01453 756646
Made In Stroud, 16 Kendrick Street Stroud 01453 840265

3. 2008 WORKSHOPS (W) & GIGS (G) with Crispin
Feb 08
11 & 12 MORPERTH King Edward V1 School
14 STROUD Artspace. Hoo Hah Poets ‘Valentine’s Night’
with Crispin ,Rosemary Dun Out To Lunch + Open Mike
21 OXFORD OARD.F.C
March 08
3 BARKING Book Week Woodlands Junior School
5 BARKING Book Week Woodlands Junior School
April 08
5 LICHFIELD LIBRARY

4 ABOUT FOOTBALL POETRY WORKSHOPS & LINKS
We’re now taking bookings for 2008 . We run and book Football Poetry Workshops all year all over the UK. . 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 Casio and a ball.!

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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5. 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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