Football Poets

I am a teacher and writer. From an early age I loved writing stories and imaginary football reports, such as when our local park team, King’s Own, in The Wimbledon and District Football League, supposedly held Don Revie’s Leeds United, in their considerable pomp, to a 0-0 draw at the Recreation Ground down the road. I also loved reading about football in Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly. But the main thing was the weekly journey to Craven Cottage or Plough Lane, depending on who was home. Fulham were in Division One then, and Wimbledon were in the Southern League. There didn’t seem to be any conflict of interest back then. I suppose my No. 1 team then were Fulham, because they had Johnny Haynes, and all the great teams of the day came to play: Man United (NOT Man U then!) with Denis Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton; Liverpool, with Ian St John and Ian Callaghan; Leeds Utd with Jack Charlton and Peter Lorimer. And some great victories: Beating Newcastle Utd 5-1; Man City 4-1. But Fulham, as a selling club, would always replace great stars with has-beens and there was never enough ambition: too much emphasis on show business and funny players like Tosh Chamberlain who supposedly took a drag of a fan’s cigarette before taking a corner. I always felt they were on their way down. Yet Wimbledon, then semi-professional, had their own distinguished history, were demonstrably on their way up. And what a journey it was at that homely, ramshackle ground that was not seen as fit to grace the  Premier League, where the fans used to change ends at half time with the players. Imperceptibly Wimbledon became my No 1 team. After all, they were a 15 minute walk away, not 3 tube stops and a long walk away.

As a writer I began with painstakingly researched historical plays about the Second World War, before branching out into monologues and audio plays. And then, about 6 months ago, I went on a performance poetry course and that really fired my imagination. I write poems inspired by football, history, nature, human relationships, cooking and technology.