Football Poets

Post Season Crispin Blog+Football Poetry Workshops

1 FOOTBALL POETS & CRISPIN ON MYSPACE
2 END OF SEASON CRISPIN BLOG & YOUR POEMS
3 INNER GOAL the poetry of football-a journey in rhyme
4 2008 FOOTBALL POETRY WORKSHOPS. Dates etc
5 Workshop Days Blog
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1 FOOTBALL POETS ON MYSPACE visit the site
Football Poets on MySpace

CRISPIN THE POET ON MYSPACE visit the site
Crispin The Poet on MySpace

2 END OF SEASON BLOG-THE FUTURE & YOUR POEMS
Another season just about gone. As ever we’ve totally enjoyed reading your poems and contributions from writers “old” and new on your own clubs and themes. Right now I’m hoping,(please!) that this might just be the year we actually get some help and also a few much needed changes and up-dates which we’ve banged on about here for ages.

One of our big challenges is the conversion of the site and the keeping intact of some 10,600 poems when we finally update. At the time my good mate Dave Cockcroft (our long-left webmaster and creator ) built and set up the site , sites were made in very different way. In a week or so’s time, I’m meeting up with two great people who (I know, we’ve heard it before) have plans and technical ideas and the know how to help myself , Clik and Peter and Stu move the site forward with those much-needed updates and improvements. So watch this space and fingers crossed. Ultimately from your messages, we know you want the essence to remain the same, but it’s long overdue an overhaul .

Forever labelled “touchy”, I just get a trifle fed up with the un-necesasary personal criticism and digs I receive when we/I do this for fun. Above all, thousands of readers, students, teachers and fans around the world get enjoyment and inspiration from YOUR WORDS.!

In the meantime keep ‘your poems coming and keep ’em clean. In my little football world , the game is still about bringing people together regardless of how fanatical we are for our club and regardless of race, creed, colour, religion, class , where we live, what we do… or the price of our boots. Go well Crispin

PS CLARITY ABOUT RESIDENT CLUB POETS AND ALLEGIANCE
On a personal level ,as a football fan and poet, I would like to make one point emphatically clear . Although two of the editors support Chelski , (sorry to mention that dreaded word,) and whilst OK yes, we do write now and then about our own club , we always endeavour to encourage and write widely about strong neutral football subjects and themes to which many contribute. That’s what I do in schools, study support centres and at many grounds and prisons.

Whilst I refer to myself, and have been referred to by the club itself
as ‘The Chelsea Poet’ , having worked in poetry workshops there
(and many other clubs) extensively, i have never been or referred
to myself here as ‘the Resident Chelsea Poet’ .Others have occasionally called me that along the way . I live 120 miles fom the ground , I get to as many games as I can in a season .There is a vast difference .

As a good friend of Ian McMillan (Barnsley FC Resident Poet) and Attila The Stockbroker (Brighton FC Resident Poet ) who both live local to their respective clubs (Attila even DJs on match days when not gigging!)for them it’s another story too, believe me. For Ian and Attila it’s largely, as with me, an act of love. Ian actually asked the club once , if he could be the resident poet , for nothing, and they said yes!, The Spurs resident poet Sarah Wardle is, to my knowledge, the only resident poet to have received a grant/salary and to be employed all year. I am just really happy getting invited to Chelsea from time to time, in addition to schools and other grounds/clubs from Colchester and Telford to Everton and West Brom and of course… prisons .I love football per sé .

On anther tangent, I was telling students in Andover this week, that hard as it was to lose in a Champions League Final , and even though I had been offered a ticket, there was no way way I could afford 1000 pounds for a round trip like that. I also remembered and admitted to adopting Man United ,for a year or so, to be my “second team” at the time of the Munich Air Crash fifty years ago .At that time, many of us in tears in school, we all, to a class and a nation, willed them back from devastation to the FA Cup Final at Wembley that year.

SUMMER!
I have three more workshops before a summer break and will be popping up solo and with Jeff The Fuse on guitar and percussion
at a few festivals including Glastonbury. Do come and say hello if you’re at Glasto, and anywhere near the Tiny Tea Tant (just over Yeoman’s Bridge as you leave the Jazz & World Stage Field).You will find me immediately opposite the Tiny Tea Tent (being silly) in the Fluff Rock Café where I will be performing at 2pm & 4pm on the Saturday and Sunday,

Your End Of Season Poems and thoughts on what might and might not have been in order of submission and appearance appear below. More please..Poems on what is , what was and what wasn’t at the end of the season, well almost..If we’ve overlooked a poignant, timeless end of season poem and you would like it included, please let us know. Your new poems also will appear here and on the Football Poets MySpace site -which has a comments / messages section at
Football Poets on MySpace

19 May Confirmation kevin raymond
12 May fm band Emdad Rahman
12 May transistor radio haiku Emdad Rahman
12 May Me Close Season Options! kevin raymond
12 May An Anti Climax Or What? kevin raymond
12 May The Great Fulham Escape SuperDan
12 May GCSEs non humphries
11 May If you thought we were dead non humphries
11 May The Fan’s Plight non humphries
11 May Thin Ice at the Reebok Alan McKean
11 May Phew ! Phew!
10 May How will I survive? Denys E. W. Jones
09 May The Season in a Haiku (haiku) Paul H Tubb
09 May All Gone Now -Final Thought Remix
Crispin Thomas
08 May Sum Up Your Season (haiku) S B Ingle
07 May Huckerbye S B Ingle
Waiting For Outcomes (Fans) Crispin Thomas
At Season’s End P Maguire
The Table Doesn’t Lie Klee, Shay
How Was The Season For You Crispin Thomas
End Of Season Keith Armstrong
End Of Season Elinor Romans
End Of Season Alan McKean
Cull Alan McKean
May Alan McKean
INNER GOAL

The poetry of football..a journey in rhyme
by CRISPIN THOMAS
100 pages – 66 poems 66 hakius and line drawings spanning 10 years of writing and 50 years of watching football(1957-2007)
“Poems in the street, in the ground and in the heart.
…poetry with balls.!” Michael Foreman
“One of the pioneers of football poetry.Who ate all the pioneers”?”
Attila The Stockbroker
Football Poets Books in paperback ISBN 9780955 737602 £8.99

INNER GOAL is now available
ON-LINE from:AMAZON BOOKS click here
INNER GOAL

BY POST
A few signed first run promo copies available at 7.99 +pp (£1.51)
Write to:Football Poets ,4 The Retreat, Butterow, Stroud GL5 2LS
(Tel 01453 757376) enclosing address+ a cheque for £9.50 made out to “OUT TO LUNCH ”

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

4. 2008 FOOTBALL POETRY WORKSHOPS
May 08
6 BANBURY Library with Peter Rhodes Brown (Oxford United FC)
7 CARTERTON Library with Peter Rhodes Brown
7 LITTLEMORE PEERS with Peter Rhodes Brown.Oxford
7 BLACKBIRD LEYS Library with Peter Rhodes Brown.Oxford
23 ANDOVER Harrow Way School
June 08
24 MAIDENHILL School Stonehouse Glos
28 GLASTONBURY Festival- 12 noon & 4pm Fluff Rock Cafe
28 GLASTONBURY Festival- 12 noon & 4pm Fluff Rock Cafe
with Out To Lunch (right opposite Tiny Tea Tent)
July
5 GLASTONWICK Festival with Attila The Stockbroker.Brighton
August
1 ADDLESTONE Library
8 WALTON & HERSHAM Libraries.

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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