broadsheet new new zealand poetry

Issue No. 13, May 2014

The Football Issue: World Cup 2014, Brazil

Editor: Mark Pirie

Foreword: Michael Groom, NZ All White 1980-84

THE NIGHT PRESS WELLINGTON

/ 1 Contents copyright 2014, in the names of the individual contributors

Published by The Night Press

Cover image: George Best by Michael O’Leary

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Please Note: At this stage no submissions will be read. The poems included are solicited by the editor. All submissions will be returned. Thank you.

2 / Contents

PREFACE / 6

FOREWORD / 7

ANON / 10

SIMON BOYCE / 11

JAMES BROWN / 12

P. S. COTTIER / 15

ALBERT CRAIG / 16

JOHN DICKSON / 17

BEN EGERTON / 23

JOHN GALLAS / 24

C.W. GRACE / 29

DYLAN GROOM / 36

VAUGHAN GUNSON / 37

TIM JONES / 38

GARY LANGFORD / 39

DAVID MCGILL / 44

/ 3 HARVEY MOLLOY / 45

MICHAEL O’LEARY / 46

BILL O’REILLY / 47

MARK PIRIE / 48

HARRY RICKETTS / 56

KENDRICK SMITHYMAN / 57

GRANT SULLIVAN / 58

ANDRÉ SURRIDGE / 59

VANGUARD / 60

WEMBLEY / 61

ESSAY FEATURE / 62

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS / 68

4 / Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors and publishers of the following collections, newspapers and magazines where the following poems in this issue first appeared:

Anon: ‘Football’ from The Star (Christchurch) newspaper, 27 January 1923. James Brown: ‘The Trialist’ from Warm Auditorium (Victoria University Prss, Wellington, 2012). Albert Craig: ‘Grand Final at The Palace’ from New Zealand Herald, 21 August 1909. John Dickson: ‘the persistence of football results on Bealey Ave’ from Plain Song (CD, Next Best Way, Dunedin, 2009). John Gallas: ‘N.Z. vs Blokhin’ revised from an earlier version which appeared in Practical Anarchy (Carcanet, UK, 1989). C. W. [Charles Woodhouse] Grace: ‘My First Football Match’ from Songs and Poems (Authors’ Co-operative Pub., London, 1890). Vaughan Gunson: ‘the goalkeeper’ from this hill, all it’s about is lifting it to a higher level (Steele Roberts, Wellington, 2012). Tim Jones: ‘The H-shaped hole’ from All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens (HeadworX, Wellington, 2007). Harvey Molloy: ‘the footballer’ from Moonshot (Steele Roberts, Wellington 2007). Bill O’Reilly: ‘Western Christchurch’ from Sporting Rhymes (Standard Press, Wellington, 1955). Mark Pirie: ‘The Cup’ from Gilgamesh: Journal of Iraqi Culture 8 (2008); ‘All White on the Night’ from Poetry NZ 41 (2010); ‘Sonnet for Simon Elliott’ from The Lampstand, Wellington College Old Boys’ magazine, 2010; ‘World Cup Epigrams’ from Thinking Cap (ESAW, Paekakariki, 2011). Harry Ricketts: ‘Sansome Walk’ from Just Then (Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2012). Anthony Rudolf: Excerpt from A Vanished Hand (Shearsman Books, England, 2013). Kendrick Smithyman: ‘Dialectic’ from A Private Bestiary: Some Unpublished Poems 1942-1987 edited by Scott Hamilton (Titus Books, Auckland, 2010). Grant Sullivan: ‘Match Day’ from Poetry NZ 43 (2011). Vanguard: ‘Players’ 12 Commandments’ from Evening Post, 19 July 1924. Wembley: ‘Scotland v. England’ from Evening Post, 12 July 1945.

/ 5 Preface

When I was researching verse for my 2010 cricket poetry book A Tingling Catch, I happened upon a handful of football poems. There were certainly not enough of them for a book at the time, but I held hopes of one day compiling a collection of football poetry. Late last year, with the 2014 World Cup approaching, I placed an online ad for ‘Football poems wanted’, the first time I’ve opened up broadsheet and allowed submissions to arrive. One of the joys and surprises of editing is that things have an uncanny knack of coming together and, sure enough, a dozen more submissions arrived to add to the handful of poems I’d already collected. A few more turned up in books and at the National Library’s PapersPast archive. It was now time to compile this World Cup football issue of broadsheet dedicated to the sport I grew up in love with as a boy and former player. My playing years were 1983-1993. Most of my early memories are of the 1982 All Whites at the World Cup in Spain, which encouraged me to take up the sport for Onslow Juniors in 1983. I became a Nottingham Forest supporter attracted to Brian Clough’s brand of football. I played until 1993 and featured in good teams at Wellington College in 1991 and Victoria University in 1992, but below the First XIs. Future Wellington City councillor Andy Foster played alongside me in the midfield at Victoria that 1992 year, and our captain/central defender was a great bloke called “Badger”, so named after his former punk hairstyle. The excellent contributions in this anthology certainly give us some of the history of New Zealand football, taking in the Chatham Cup contest of 1945, the seminal Manchester United visit of 1967 (with George Best, also finely drawn by Michael O’Leary on the cover), the national football league of the ’80s, and NZ’s only appearances at the World Cup in 1982 and 2010. Fine individual NZ players like Brian Turner, Wynton Rufer, Ryan Nelsen and Simon Elliott receive tributes/mentions. Anthony Rudolf contributes a delightful essay on English football autographs from the 1950s. The earliest poem by C. W. Grace is dated c1890 and gives us a view of football in the 19th century. Dylan Groom’s recent poem brings the collection up-to-date and is a moving poem. The author had undergone surgery, and his comeback to football was one of those amazing football stories we love to hear about. It’s an honour to include Dylan’s fine poem in this issue as well as inviting his father, former All White Michael Groom, one of our best technical players and coaches, to do the honours with the foreword. Thanks to those who helped/contributed. Bring on the World Cup, and may the spirit of football’s goodwill prevail.

Mark Pirie,Wellington, May 2014

6 / Foreword

I am honoured to be a contributor to this commemorative anthology. My involvement brings together two great loves of my life: football and poetry. Indeed, my son Dylan, who is represented among the authors on these pages, was named after the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Given his penchant for poetry, Thomas once wrote ‘ poetry is what makes your toenails twinkle ’. This statement is particularly apt in regard to this collection, which celebrates the beautiful game in the year that the World Cup will be staged in Brazil. Brazil, where toenails twinkle with happiness to the sound of the samba; where the dance-like movement of the players on the pitch is poetry in motion. Brazil, where football is life. Many of the poems in this anthology are sure to make the reader’s toenails twinkle or, as Thomas added, ‘ make you laugh or cry ’. The artistry of football is a kind of poetry. Like the music in the line of a poem, a pass can sing with the author’s spirit, emotion, and sense of rhythm and timing. Furthermore, as poets place words side by side in formal arrangement in their search for literary alchemy, coaches seek the harmony of players in positions in pursuit of elevating a team’s performance to the level of the orchestral. Football as music. Football as an art form. That moment when the game, as they say in Brazil, becomes the jogo bonito. All of the poets in this collection have captured, through the evocative power of their words, the poetry of the game. It has pulsed through their veins. To read these poems is to share in the author’s intoxication with football and its effect upon their soul. We, as readers, have a window into this sacred space. A space, where in the case of some of the poems in the collection, thoughts and feelings about the game are expressed with religious intensity. States of epiphany are captured, as names like Ronaldinho, Ryan Nelsen and Wynton Rufer become incantations on the page. Names such as George Best, Bobby Moore and Oleh Blokhin evoke powerful images of football played poetically and with passion. In this the year of the World Cup, many of the readers will remember the glorious exploits in Spain in 1982. A time when the All Whites attained football nirvana, by competing against the Canarinha, from the country of the Copacabana. A time in New Zealand’s sporting history when football became a part of the collective consciousness of kids across the country – the editor being one of them! I’m sure, as well, that many readers will recollect New Zealand’s appearance in South Africa in 2010 (which came courtesy of Rory Fallon’s emphatic header against Bahrain

/ 7 in the qualifier in Wellington) when thousands of Kiwis on sofas, in bars, or at their local clubs, rose simultaneously with arms in the air, to celebrate Shane Smeltz’s goal against Italy. A goal that sent shock waves through the nation of the then reigning world champions. More recently, the youth of the current crop of highly talented and technical All Whites, is sure to provide New Zealand with the very strong possibility of being present at the next World Cup. They will, I’m sure, be the source of more great moments in New Zealand sport, and the inspiration for more great poetry! I consider it to be one of the highlights of my football career to be asked to write the foreword for this distinguished New Zealand publication. The authors in this collection have had their hearts and souls moved by the game they love. I can think of no other way to conclude a foreword that pays homage to them and celebrates football and poetry, than in the rhythm and rhyme of verse:

Here in black ink, on all these white pages, Will live the game, throughout all the ages.

Joga bonito, Michael Groom, April 2014

*Jogo bonito - the beautiful game. Joga bonito - play beautifully.

8 / The Football Issue

A selection of football poetry 1890-2014

/ 9 Anon

F O O T B A L L

Put your cricket bats away, Football is the game to play, When the swallows southward fly From chill winter drawing nigh.

Boundaries we mark with care, Flags are planted here and there, Goalposts painted white are seen, Ready on the village green.

Football season has begun! Following the ball we run, Learning how to shoot or pass, With the teacher of our class.

Soon proficient lads will play In a match, some holiday, That the trophy, won last year, In our school may still reappear.

Some like rounders, others say Hockey is more fun to play; King of all the games that be, Football is the game for me!

*Appears to be an English poem printed in a New Zealand paper. It appeared in the Christchurch Star’s weekly Saturday children’s section of stories and poems in 1923. It was published with no author credited.

10 / Simon Boyce

H O M E G R O U N D

The time, as much as the place

Being part of a team, not playing for a school but for a club, an Association Football Club, Lower Hutt City AFC

Homeground: Bell Park

Time: late winter, maybe early spring a cool, fine day; the time is approximately 9.30am; it’s Saturday morning ‘soccer’ for the under 16s

Place: it could have been Bell Park, Te Whiti, or Fraser Park; any football ground briefly filled by parents, supporters, and players with ambition

More than the place, the time when the schoolboy’s dream was still alive

/ 11 James Brown

T H E T R I A L I S T For Andrew Clarke

He’s introduced as Jimmy, and so we call him Sheep. A doe-eyed, jumped-up hopeful from a failed, woolly colony, he’s here on a month’s trial. I’ve seen so many come

and go dreaming of Ronaldinho. He hasn’t a shit show. Who of his countrymen have made a go

of the Premier League? Lord Nelsen captained Blackburn, but he’s a defender – has mastered the art of getting in the way – this lamb fancies his name on

the score sheet. First practice, we shut him down, the tackles less and less forgiving, until he asks what gives, says he’s on our side. Is he thick? His bleat receives

my back, but Big Rob’s in his ear: ‘Ah don’t care who ya’re or where ya from, ya not coming here an’ takin’ ma job. Do ah make masalf clear?’

So it goes for three grim weeks. But it must be Year of the Ram. Injury, suspension and a career- ending ‘off-field incident’ take their toll, and, come Saturday, the Governor

has him on the bench. It’s nil-nil halfway through the second spell when the Gov gambles on a double change, pushing for the win, the critical

12 / three points dangling before him like a snare. Then, a wrong foot: Big Rob – heart of steel, head of air – collects a second yellow in a rash attempt at flair. The Gov avoids the Chairman’s stare.

A mad re-shuffle and the sheep shagger is on – alone up front where he can do least harm. We hardly even yell at him, ignoring his distant, waving arm, his incisive runs to nowhere, instead turning the ball back or square. Twice I delay a pass to where he madly gestures so he’s caught off-side. See, that’s precisely why you’ll never pull a wage in this league, sonny. Then sod me if he doesn’t score a beauty.

Gets on to a nothing ball, skips past his man and bangs it in to our collective gasp. After that, some passes start to find him. I even offer up a smart one-two. When the final whistle goes I’m at his side for photos, helping him acknowledge the applause and negotiate the post-match media whores.

/ 13 ‘The team dug deep today,’ I say. ‘The Gov’s punt paid off. It was tough for Jim alone up front, but we were always in the hunt, and he latched onto a chance and made it count.

He’s a good lad, with a great turn of speed. The boys’ve rallied round to help him find his feet and they’ll make sure he keeps them on the ground this coming week.’

*Ronaldinho - Brazil midfielder/forward; Lord Nelsen - Ryan Nelsen, former NZ and Blackburn captain and central defender.

14 / P. S. Cottier

P A S S I N G B E A U T Y

It’s moving, just ahead of the players’ most clever feet. Every four years, we fill a cup, then pour it out, a month of dreams. Was it just last week that Bergkamp flicked with orange elegance, side-footing space and time? No, he is long gone now, off fielding forty years. Others follow. Messy time melts beauty, remoulds it, casts it always anew. It never ages, constantly fired, as we fade, we watchers – yesterday’s players, passing. Twenty sips at the cup will fill a lifetime; held safe in keeper’s hands.

*Bergkamp - Dennis Bergkamp, Dutch forward.

/ 15 Albert Craig

G R A N D F I N A L A T T H E P A L A C E

[Manchester United v. Bristol City]

If exciting Cup Tie fighting Is a pastime you delight in, You’ll have your heart’s desire complete this day; Not a moment will be dreary, Not a man grow faint or weary, They’re the kind of “sports” that “travel all the way.”

See “yon” game Mancunian party, So hopeful, gay, and hearty, They pin their faith in Meredith and Co.; Whilst the Bristol section tell us That Wedlock – best of fellows – Declares they’ll win – Wedlock ought to know.

And when the conflict’s over, And the winners rest in clover, When manfully they’ve pulled the struggle through, We’ll applaud our conquering brothers, And we’ll likewise cheer the others, For there’s very little difference ’twixt the two.

*Wikipedia – ‘The match was played on 24 April 1909 at Crystal Palace, and was contested by Manchester United and Bristol City, both of the First Division. Manchester United won by a single goal, scored by Sandy Turnbull midway through the first half. This was the first of United’s record eleven FA Cup titles to date.’ Meredith – Billy Meredith, Manchester United, Man of the Match; Wedlock – Billy Wedlock, Bristol City. 16 / John Dickson

T H E P E R S I S T E N C E O F F O O T B A L L R E S U L T S O N B E A L E Y A V E

As in the freezing, in the falling snow, up there, on the all grinning, all scheming balcony, deputy chairman Clementis removes his hat and as if coronating a king, places it on our chairman’s bare faced head, as we, the crowd (collectively embracing our death bound selves for once), as we begin to sing,

*

During the last economic boom, when all the gamblers were boasting of the killings they’d made buying and selling junk bonds on tick, chip on both shoulders, I balanced: Mercedes? BMWs? German Holdens with greedy snouts. And as for Ladas, when one of those clumbered by: Hey guys. Whadya call a Skoda full of food? And then one day, I turned a key. And from first spark of the BMW’s fuel injected, quietly thrumming motor, without benefit of life long learning, critical theory, or Zen, my newly installed, six valved heart, accelerated itself along the methamphetamined, triple bypass boutiques and shady dead end credits of late post modern capital: Trippen shoes? Yes please. And two pair of those Italian made, Irish linen suits, and while you’re wrapping those Japanese Olives, hand me my invitations to Zeralda’s feasts.

/ 17 So before my paying up day, I’m the blue propeller, enjoying all the freedoms of our now goebblized world, everything, except for one small thing: the drongos who drive UAV’s and who tailgate while driving their out of our way trucks with car brakes. And when that happens? Then it’s just Jimmy Jim and me, two upright Southland gents, no boozing no dancing no swearing, no a-laying of our hands on that Mary Lou, we just be a-looking at those Internet movies, and with our petrol headed arteries choked to the max, in Uberalle’s bazooka ute, we run the stadium streets: That Patrol there, eh bro? No, Jimmy. That Safari, eh. They wanna go off road. Then praise be, eh bro. Their word’s ours. Road rage, road rage, you say? Tiny Twin Towers in every street.

But today, on Bealey Ave, when I happened on a crash involving a car still pointing somehow to the place it was going before the driver of a Land Cruiser, his eyes perhaps glazed by the whores (you know, the service industry crowd strung out on P), or talking perhaps on his cell phone, had failed to give way, and glanced off at first sight into yet another Land Cruiser, today, I stopped, and walked back. And before it vanished into whatever traces shall remain of humans (a carbon based life form that lived once only 18 / amongst two hundred million galaxies), while two donkers discussed insurance, along with the rest of the crowd on our footpath balcony, I applauded the car, a barely dented, battleship gray Skoda.

Now maybe I can’t speak for what the others may have seen, but what I saw today on Bealey Ave wasn’t just any old car, but an aging steel worker from Prague who’d somehow survived the times when the dyslectic dialectics of history, had all by themselves, and without making even the slightest of ideological errors in case the shrewd yellow eyes of their sponsor (a five foot two, jovial father of the people), cited them as class enemies of the revolution, and they got themselves arrested and beaten and beaten and beaten, and after the usual confession, had their frontal lobes lobotomized, chunks of their bone and brain tissue spewn out in such meaningless patterns the dialectics themselves still don’t possess enough random access memory to reassemble the shatter, but which then, through their mouthpieces, up there, on their all scheming, all vodkolised to the max balcony, had had enough credit to present to us – the happily singing of hope crowd – the promised worker’s state where we could go on dreaming of holidays by the Siberian sea

/ 19 wearing neither shoes nor coats while treadmilling a central committee’s never ending five year future plan. The times when you wouldn’t talk to anybody who owed you an answer because when you glanced at their eyes, you’d see nothing but the cunning of the completely defeated who could not only use the people’s noose, but also (in one of those radical interventions so pomped these days by the usual well paid theorists of excusing truth), air brush from all the Party’s official photos, a deputy chairman placing his hat on a bare faced chairman’s head, and his coat, and his smile, and his life. And if you woke after that, after drinking the plasma of broken words, cheap Russian vodka until 5 am, you were still falling through traps, your memory abandoned to memories of memories that had happened for real: “Arrest Stasova, too. Turned out she’s scum. And Kirsanova? She’s too closely involved with Yakovlev. She’s scum, too. And Muntzenberg? He’s a Trotskyite. Try and lure him here. And if he comes. Arrest him. And then you beat and you beat and you beat”. The times of the people’s state, when choked between history kill and the need for decent shoes, resistance was swarf into machines, faulty parts in cars, missing files, and jokes in passing: Hey Postie. 20 / These new stamps with Lenin, they don’t stick. Comrade, you’ve been spitting on the wrong side.

So as I, an aging steel worker who’d survived the Nazis by installing Skoda motors in Tiger Tanks, and then the glorified Party of Hope, by assembling Skoda cars designed by committees, as I accelerate down Bealey Ave, and overtaking the boy racers, I burn them off down the straights of Harper Ave, deputy chairman Clementis removes his black hat and places it shroud like over the latest news now radiating from Radio Prague, Doctors Leaving For Better Wages, Violence Growing Amongst School Children, Illegal Money Lending, the usual one size fits all prop-agenda now provided on the hour by our new sponsors, the miraculous mandarins of late capital and their soft path fascism, up there, in their all laughing, all full of it, let’s give the punters what we want, credit cards and sport corporate box; as I, no longer an over-stayer in the land of promises, promises, as I accelerate, knowing now for sure that dialectics and free market freedoms don’t mean squat if you’re being shot or hung, and that in all cases, it’s never the bosses, but the work of us, the singing crowd, that gives our kids decent shoes and those unruly mouths that talk back;

/ 21 as I accelerate, carrying to you our invitations to Zeralda’s feasts – the happiness of ransacking old settler wardrobes for the brief freedom of alternating nudity and fancy dress – I’m grinning back at Mary Lou’s winning let’s you and me go fuck ourselves silly grin, because, comrades, in the quiet of my voice, I’m still happy with the latest result: Skoda 2, Land Cruisers 0.

*Bealey Ave - A street in Christchurch, New Zealand. 22 / Ben Egerton

T H E B E A U T I F U L G A M E (with apologies to Wilfred Owen)

Crouched and heaving, like vagrants in their shirts, bandy-legged, wheezing, they swore in the mire. On the whistle they turned, no pride, just hurt, and towards the changing room they retired. Players walked wearily with heads in hands, boots untied they hobbled on, impervious to the sounds of derision from the stands – comments from the fans far from courteous.

Shrill whistle! Quick team! A hurried fumble for kit whilst hearing the manager’s words. Just in time, on the pitch the team stumbled to resume; the first half a dirty blur. From the touchline the manager’s obscene taunt, watching his poor players in disarray. From the stands the banter, supporters gaunt – never had they seen such a bad display.

If you’ve ever been to Norwich, to Carrow Road, or dreamed such a nightmarish vision, seen players clad in canary yellow surrender, even when in possession! If you share the misery and despair of watching your team struggle to compete playing like empty sacks, devoid of flair, whilst you stand shivering in the Norfolk sleet – my friend you would not dare evangelise or describe in such trumped-up, puffed-up shame spreading your velvet-voiced deliberate lies that football is the beautiful game.

*Carrow Road – the homeground of Norwich City FC. / 23 John Gallas

N . Z . V B L O K H I N

1 On the 19th of June, 1982, some football team that had found its way out of the Soviet Union beat New Zealand, 3-0. This, er, moral surprise, took place in Malaga, Spain, once – it is not surprising – a scurrilous Moorish emirate. There were 20,000 spectators – baying. Millions more saw it on television. It is recorded in the Rothmans Football Yearbook and cannot be erased.

If a thing can’t be erased, then it has to be explained – away, if need be. That is the point of History.

If God exists, and Justice, Which accompanies Him through Heaven waving small white things around his head, then it is just impossible that they would let – with no explanation on earth – their own ch- sp- anointed country be bashed up in this way: That is, unless they meant something by it, and something pretty bloody inspiring it would have to be.

Some chap who wrote the Bible says, RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION, so it does not take a philosopher to figure out that Wickedness condemns it.

24 / To think that God is not interested in Sport is a vespertilionidious blindness: does he, or somebody else, not say, MEN LIVE BY POSITIVE GOALS?

Our overturning had rather the impression of a Big Boot; everybody knows that slaps require some past misdeed and we will have to get going and inspect our own history until we find it – some knotty transgression or other done in the golden days that is still unaccounted for. Perhaps, being a new sort of place we may be excused the excesses of naievete and youth, the stillness that goes with a fresh breath of life the beef that is a part of purity. That Russians, who are atheists, rabbited to a history of treachery, depravity, madness, slaughter, untidiness and communism, should be allowed to sweep into the nets of Paradise is no mere waltz in dark glasses.

We must look to our laurels, which perhaps we should never have picked in the first place.

/ 25 2 Dear Merv (you old Stick-in-the Mud!), After that little exhi-bloody-bition I’ll tell you something for nothing, Merv; Merv, we’re going to have to watch our bloody hearts now when we go out to play. You know what they reckon out here? I’ll tell you, Merv; Merv, they reckon that the first part of that thing by Marx about Money is nailed up behind his left eye (some ropey Red operations or other, all hush-hush and secret stuff, like sticking dogs’ heads on other dogs’ bits) disguised as A.X. Panov’s The Intelligent Way to Play Football. All by surgery! Jesus! And volume two’s in his right, or, if it isn’t, then it might be, so this Jap I fell over in a bar reckons, in his boot! Imagine that, eh! Christ! That bar, Merv, had a bloody bull in the window!

Now you’re asking me, Merv, how did we lose, eh? And I’ll tell you something, Merv; I’ll tell you why. There were Reds in Paradise, Merv. Reds in Paradise. Now you’re asking me how can God let it happen, eh? HOW CAN GOD LET IT HAPPEN? They reckon you can see the bloody pages turning if you look really hard

26 / (fair go, Merv!) right in his eyes when he’s hot, when he’s tearing around on the grass after his wages with a bloody slogan for all his shouts and shots and a party line for all his looks and passes and with the fine and hearty passion, Merv, colder, but no less, of a democrat with his holy book, the older blessing of his god, after his fashion, on his soul, for all his faithful and unfriendly goals and all his bloody philosophic nods when they miss and don’t kiss – which isn’t very often, Merv, NOT VERY BLOODY OFTEN.

Wave away our salad days, the rest is built on envy too. Merv, roooooll up the long white cloud; the best we do are sleepy shoals of sheepish souls and two whole Earthly Paradises, and, if you catch my boat, Merv, goals tried for and missed.

It’s only bloody creation. Funny eh? He plays like hell and should be kissed; no! More than Hell – in ways vastly better than our hearts, that beget only fatuous calm.

GODZONE! GODZONE! NEVER BLAH BLAH BLAH WALK ALONE!

/ 27 ‘Struth, Merv, another bloody goal! Pass the spirits, don’t moan, just think next bloody time we’ll have a bunch of fitter souls and the right might might be divinely right again, like it ought to be.

E X C U S E S N O . 3 : F O O T B A L L

We lost this afternoon because the fog is shapen like a trumpet.

*Blokhin - Oleh Blokhin, Soviet Union forward who scored in the 48th minute of their 3-0 win over New Zealand. USSR had lost only 2 of 29 internationals before the 1982 World Cup and were a strong side for New Zealand to face. 28 / C. W. Grace

M Y F I R S T F O O T B A L L M A T C H

Suggested by an article that appeared in “Keble’s Gazette,” November 17th, 1888

Carefully raise my head, dear, And turn my pillow, too; But oh! do be more gentle, You are so clumsy, Sue.

What made me take up football I really do not know, But my forefathers were heroes; At least they tell me so.

And upon their fiery spirit Thinking to have a claim, To the football field I took me, To seek a warrior’s fame.

I joined the gallant “Wanderers,” Who oft had won renown, Thirsting to share their honours, And wear the laurel crown.

Not long after enlisting, Our captain sent a note To say, we played the “Scorpions” Encamped at Gospel Oak;

And hoping most sincerely I’d do my level best To put in an appearance At our Season’s first contest.

/ 29 We played unfortunately The Association game, Which, after Rugby Union, To me seemed somewhat tame.

A book of rules I purchased, That I might nothing lack, With a very striking picture Illumining its back.

That striking coloured picture Engrossed me all the way, As to the field of action We drove that fatal day.

We were shewn on our arrival Into an ancient shed, Where formerly some cattle And horses had been fed.

Its lofty walls and ceiling Had many an ugly rent, Disclosing various landscapes And the spacious firmament.

The flooring was constructed Purely of Mother Earth, As destitute of furniture As a baby at its birth!

Our “funny man” determined, As I thought rather well, That there was nothing stable In that shed except the smell! 30 / As I viewed the lofty heavens, Fearful of coming woes, I prayed the gods in silence To protect me from my foes.

In force the Scorpions mustered, My fathers’ spirit failed; At their ferocious aspect The stoutest would have quailed.

They were striped yellow jerseys, Head, arms, and legs were bare; While in the breeze was bristling Their short dishevelled hair.

They really did look war-like, As though they could defy All efforts of the Wand’rers; In fact would do or die.

We took up our position On a mead between two seas, With a gentle inclination Of forty-five degrees.

Those seas, with the addition Of some charming little creeks, Were the natural formation Of the rain of previous weeks.

We nobly were admonished Each one to mark his man, After which exhortation The football match began.

/ 31 This ’cute idea of marking I’d never learnt at school, Nor did my little handbook Contain any such rule!

Our captain had advised me To mark as my own man A desperado fellow, Well known as “Sandy Jan.”

On whom, I can assure you, I kept a glittering eye; For of his gaunt appearance I felt a wee bit shy.

The first time that I “marked” him, In sooth I roused his ire, Inducing Jan directly To appeal to the Umpire.

Nerved by ancestral valour, I had rushed through thick and thin, And with much ardent vigour Hacked Janus on the shin.

I only struck the football But once, so great the pace: ’Twas when it rose up kindly And kissed me on the face.

I have no recollection What took place after this, Until the happy advent Of that interval of bliss. 32 / In which we all sucked lemons In a most determined way, While each one vowed in secret He would improve his play.

The game, on recommencing, Proceeded much the same, When at last there came the moment For me to win my fame.

I was quietly regaining My wind, being rather done, After a very dashing But unproductive run.

The ball came rolling towards me! My father’s spirit rose! I breathed “I’ll win my laurels, Or fall among my foes!”

“There is a tide,” I whispered, “In the affairs of men,” And was nobly pressing forward To certain victory – when

The “Scorpions” all shouted, “Stop, stop! you fool! offside!” – A horrible wet blanket To my fast rising pride.

But not thus to be daunted So nigh the goal of fame, I there and then determined The idiots should explain;

/ 33 And was in the act of turning, When suddenly, alack! Two thunderbolts fell on me, Crushing my ribs and back.

The ground flew up and struck me, And I saw, as in a dream, The gayest constellation That I had ever seen!

The stars in quick succession Were shooting from the sky, Whilst in their midst the football Was soaring up on high.

At this important crisis My remains they homeward bore, To play Association – In this world, nevermore!

They say I’ve gained much glory, And revived the ancient name, But oh! for a restoration Of health – I’d bar the fame!

You cannot tell how anxious I feel about my fate, For our doctor frankly tells me I’m in a doubtful state.

How I wish that blood ancestral, In spite of all its gains, Had found some other channel Than my young ardent veins.

34 / ’Tis sweet to feel a veteran, But it does not compensate For the injuries I have suffered, And my untimely fate.

I must conclude abruptly, For there’s the doctor’s bell, And Susan whispers, “Darling, You’re looking so unwell!”

Besides, my muse grows sluggish, And being far from bright, ’Tis better, gentle readers, To bid you all good-night.

*Written about a fictional English football match at Gospel Oak, south of Hampstead Heath, London. Wanderers were one of the teams that won renown in the early years of organised football in England. In 1872, the first FA Cup final was won by Wanderers defeating Royal Engineers 1-0. The author (New Zealand-born) returned from England and later wrote the collection Songs and Poems from “Aotearoa”, 1924. / 35 Dylan Groom

F O O T B A L L

Football is my world, and football is my life. It’s all I thought about when I went under the knife.

I love this game, the game you play with a ball that’s round. And I’ll always love this game, until I’m buried in the ground.

I’ll play it on grass or in a gym, I’ll even play it in dirt. One thing’s for sure when I win I’ll be wearing a Clube shirt.

I’ll play any position I’m needed in, I’ll even play number one. I can’t wait for the day I have a ball and I’m dancing in the sun.

My dad’s the coach and Josh is number ten. At some point during the season, I’ll play with Ben.

We will play to win and we will play to score. There’s nothing else in my life I have ever wanted more.

I can’t wait to get out there with a ball on a shiny, sunny day. I’ll think Alegria and Bounce, ’cause I’ll be playing for the Clube.

*Alegria and Bounce - Dylan’s father Michael Groom’s samba style coaching methods. The Clube is a Hukanui/Rototuna Football Club side. 36 / Vaughan Gunson

T H E G O A L K E E P E R for Poppy things turn around fast, don’t they? you’re in goal now, keeping out the ball most of the time, being kicked towards you. I’m only here to watch really – advice?

I can offer it, it may help or it may not; how can I say what you should do?

I’ve certainly let through more than you into the back of the net – who’s to say you won’t save more? that’s in the future but I can see your determination, facing your opponents, coming down the centre or at your flanks; your crouched readiness

– there’s something I could learn there as my pose has become more languorous. all I can say, then, is celebrate your saves & don’t despair at the ones you miss. turn quickly round & look back down the field in front of you – & when you can just glance my way, so that I might stay, as long as I can, beside you.

/ 37 Tim Jones

T H A T H - S H A P E D H O L E

Some bastard is always moving the goalposts

which results in conversions being missed five-yard scrums conceded and the flash kids from town giving the first fifteen a good thrashing behind the bike sheds after the game.

Young men of substance good country stock cannot face Friday nights with confidence.

Their beloveds inamoratas though ready for a root may choose to step out with the round-ball boys instead – the soccer team despised, abused has won some games this year.

That H-shaped uncertainty is eating away the heart of a town

always some bastard picking them up setting them down.

38 / Gary Langford

W O R L D C U P T A L K S

World Cup talks will be a great success. Nations play together to solve a mess. The first year is slow going. Before there can be a win or loss, officials argue about the costs.

The second year progresses a little better, though this is mostly due to whether – the players are on a fair wind, the whistle blows up happiness, the spectators stop throwing rubbish.

The third year is a major triumph. Rules are set upon to fit the coming event. Out of reverence for the past, they work out who will kick first, and who will kick last.

The fourth year sees a profound setback. Negotiators suffer a ball attack. Football has returned to what it’s always been. Before there can be a win or loss, officials argue about the costs.

/ 39 U N C L E T H E F O O T B A L L H E R O

My uncle was an ordinary man, leaving school at an ordinary age. At family gatherings everyone thought he was an apology. This is what he was always doing. He could never kick the ball straight, able to land it where nobody else could: sizzling bbq sausages in your face, knocking over your drinks from ten metres, landing on your head with another apology. A family reunion turned him into the uncle who saved a child’s life. A boulder came pounding down the hill, as if thrown by an angry hand. Duck, he called. I did, saving my life, ending his. Uncle took the boulder as a ball, and he knew what he was doing, crowd on their feet, last few seconds of a close game, which it was, my uncle’s game, as the football rolled him away.

40 / K N O W L E D G E

Genghis Khan Kublai Khan Caesar Augustus Darius I Chandra Gupta II Sweyn Forkbeard Charles the Fat Olaf the Stout Te Wherowhero Manco Capac Plekhanov Yamagata Aritomo von Haast Adolf Hitler Pol Pot none of these people ever played football in the World Cup.

/ 41 C H A R G E O F T H E B A L L S B R I G A D E

Half a foot, half a foot, half a foot onwards, into the valley of finals rides the one hundred.

Forwards, calls the Balls Brigade. Attack the opposition for which you’re made, otherwise he’ll sneer at the way you play. Balls thunder over the mourning dew.

Lines to the left of them. Lines to the right of them. Goals to the front of them. Balls are up, up and away.

Cheers – a balls-eye approach. Hysteria – a goal turned down on the grounds of a talking ball, led by the prime minister: I speak on behalf of the Balls Brigade, the noble one hundred, planned and paid.

*After Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.

42 / D E A R P R O B L E M P A G E

Taken out of a dark room every Saturday afternoon, by a group jumping up and down. I am thrown around. One spits on my leather. Another complains about the weather. I am then kissed for luck and kicked, causing someone to duck, accusing the kicker of being a bastard, due to placing me between the posts last week. Gloating causes a counter accusation, missed by a mile, the ref was blind, as you take him to work on time. I wish they’d agree exactly what to do with me. Yours truly, F.Ball.

/ 43 David McGill

F O O T B A L L L I M E R I C K

Nigh on 50 years I’ve loved West Ham No, not your dire Dutch brekkie with jam I mean the team of Bobby Moore Which I saw in post-World Cup awe Then, ’tis true, I shook the great man’s hand.

*Bobby Moore – the winning captain of England at the 1966 World Cup and a West Ham United player.

44 / Harvey Molloy

T H E F O O T B A L L E R

The footballer renounces vodka, Guinness & Belgian lagers the footballer renounces fountains of champagne & every last cigarette he smoked as a chaser the footballer regrets his transplanted liver from the first floor window he sees white leaves of snow falling on the park he remembers the clack of the rackets like guns the whistles from the terraces like the hunting call of a constable’s pursuit how he never had to think but left thinking to a body that could be trusted on the pitch how his shins were always cut & bruised after a match what a terrible thing to be Irish playing for an English team the footballer remembers the night clubs that never worked out the months of missed practices abroad ah but when you win you’re a winner snow covers the iron railings around the park

It’s nearly noon thinks the footballer I really should get dressed

/ 45 Michael O’Leary

M A N C H E S T E R U N I T E D V S A U C K L A N D 1 9 6 7

In 1967 the football club Manchester United played a game Against an Auckland Eleven they were expected to tame And although they did in the end win eight goals to one Seeing ‘The Beatles’ of the football world was great fun

For as a teenager I had always preferred the round ball code Rather than the rugger that ‘everybody else’ in New Zealand chose And watching the ‘Beautiful Game’ in that ‘Summer of Love’ Brought music and sport together as if to finally prove

That a show in front of more than 26,000 at Carlaw Park Watching Soccer could be like a rock concert where the spark Of enthusiasm is ignited by an ultimate, primal, human desire To belong, as in olden days when people gathered around a fire

Thus, the world’s most famous and celebrated sport was seen In Auckland at a time of love and music and the world of dream

Paekakariki 27 March 2014

*DB NZ Soccer Annual 1975: ‘Manchester United came to New Zealand, hammered both its opponents [Auckland 8-1 and NZ 11-0] and introduced soccer supremo George Best to the country. That United team had all the stars: Best, Charlton, Law, Stiles, Stepney, Aston, Foulkes, Crerand, Kidd ... the list seemed endless.’ Charlie Dempsey was the director of tours for the NZFA and the AFA. 46 / Bill O’Reilly

W E S T E R N C H R I S T C H U R C H (Thoughts on the Chatham Cup won by “Western” after being a goal down with two minutes to play.)

When things look blue don’t ever get down-hearted, Exert yourself, it is not yet the end. Soon maybe will your run of luck be started, Then hang on till it starts for if you spend Even a moment stupidly complaining, Running about and saying all is up, No hope at all have you of ever gaining a spot of glory in life’s Chatham Cup.

1945

*O’Reilly’s acrostic first appeared in The Evening Post’s “Postscripts” column, 4 September 1945, after ‘one of the most exciting games ever seen in Wellington’. Western won the cup 4-3 against Marist of Wellington in extra-time at the Basin Reserve. The Chatham Cup is the symbol of club football supremacy in New Zealand, our version of the FA Cup. On 14 December 1922, the NZFA were invited to visit the HMS Chatham for the purposes of receiving the cup, a thank you present to New Zealand after their visit. The cup was a replica of the English FA Cup and the Chatham Cup copied the rules of the English FA Cup. The initial cup in 1923 was won by Seacliff AFC of Otago, with a team comprising staff from the Seacliff Mental Asylum. / 47 Mark Pirie

B O O T S

(for Dean)

1 On Winter days, the cold chill forming pimples on our skin, we would travel out together in rain and wind and put foot to ball, or ball to foot. You were always a lot faster, a lot fitter than me, but we trained constantly, honing our skills: Brazilian turns, back flicks, free-kicks and corners – and collected all the soccer mags we could find: Shoot, Match,World Soccer, and our very own Soccer Express (before it ended). Then, it was the late ’80s: Mal Dunford was captain of the All Whites and Ironside controlled the midfield. Rufer seldom played a game, except the odd appearance in a World Cup qualifier. Instead, we read of him: ‘a star of the Bundesliga’.

We looked up to Rufer tho’, thinking we would be ‘stars’ too. It was when I was cleaning up the other day that I found my boots, last used at ’Varsity (two seasons played), still dusted in dirt, but mindful as ever of you.

48 / 2 So the years went by, you made new friends, joined a Church, grew distant, threw out your old tapes.

At one stage you held a ritual burning for Nirvana’s Nevermind; I couldn’t agree – the floating baby chasing the dollar on the cover was always a fine symbol for me. I became a dee-jay (with hefty student loan), part of the ‘alternative’ scene, studied English and wrote poetry. The last time we were together was the Euro Championship in ’92. I camped at your place, with Joe, caught the train to Linden, saw every game, and watched in amazement as the Dane’s finally won. Sadly, your step-father then died – a freak accident on the Ngauranga Gorge.

We gradually lost touch. But I still remember your 21st, and although our ‘playing days’ were now over, as I left, I found the keys to your house were in my pocket, they were jingling still with the memory of youth.

*Rufer - Wynton Rufer, NZ and Werder Bremen (Germany) forward, Oceania Footballer of the Century, seldom able to play for NZ because of club commitments; Ironside - Robert Ironside, North Shore and NZ midfielder; Malcolm Dunford - NZ defender. Soccer Express: 1984-92. / 49 T H E C U P

For the Iraq football team

Today, football made the news, and the news on my mind.

Iraq won the Asian Cup. Surprising to many, this

nation of civil unrest and war could harvest

a team of players, to take on the elite

of Asia; it is to my mind a triumph of spirit.

Several of the players’ relatives were killed

in suicide attacks back home, but determinedly they played on.

Football is a game of love, a well-timed pass

of passion, each shot and flick of the foot

resounding into others’ lives and ricocheting into

50 / homes around the world, temporarily shutting out

the bombs, the missing limbs, the screams of pain,

the weeping, the burns, lacerations and wounds,

slow to heal or bleeding fast; yes, those scars of war,

so mercilessly uncouth and callous in their choosing of victims,

is what keeps these players (and those who watched in Iraq)

running, even after the final whistle has blown and the cup lifted.

2007

*Iraq were Asian Cup champions 2007. Bombs exploded in Baghdad during the semi-final victory celebrations. Final: Iraq 1 Saudi Arabia 0, 29 July 2007, Jakarta, Indonesia. Younus Mahmoud scored the decisive goal in the 72nd minute.

/ 51 A L L W H I T E O N T H E N I G H T

New Zealand is that rare country where people unite to be either All Black or All White. Sport, that great uniter of people again proved itself last night where it was all white on the night.

Pre-game, people met in bars and spilled out on to sidewalks wearing T shirts of ’82, clinking glasses from under white sheets draped over their shoulders.

It was a ‘white out’, 35, 000 travelled to Westpac Stadium to cheer the All Whites to victory and a place at the World Cup. As is often the case, sporting pride brings out the spirit of this country.

On the stroke of half-time, Rory Fallon sealed the win with a firm header, breaking hearts in Bahrain, whose players contended with the conditions admirably,

unlucky to miss a penalty that would have seen them through. Nelsen, Killen, Vicelich, Brown, McGlinchy, Smeltz, Bertos, Paston, Sigmund, Lochhead and Fallon are now the new heroes of football here.

52 / Like their ’82 counterparts an explosion of interest will drive the sport. They are the new Rufers, Herberts, Wooddins and Sumners epitomized by the chants of ‘All Whites, All Whites’ long into the night.

NZ 1 Bahrain 0, World Cup 2010 qualifier, 14 November 2009

S O N N E T F O R S I M O N E L L I O T T

Watching Simon Elliott play Slovakia, Italy and Paraguay, now the veteran at 36, makes me remember old school days. Once after school I trained with the First XI, with Simon holding the ball up. I ran in to try and tackle him but couldn’t get near the ball. A sign of unusual skill even then. I followed his career closely, saw him upset Australia as he helped take the All Whites to the Confederations Cup. After American MLS honours, he moved on to London club Fulham. He was at the forefront of most midfields he partnered, whether for club or country. In his career, he’s done it all. Seeing him and his team-mates make history was magical.

*‘Rufers, Herberts, Wooddins and Sumners’ - Wynton and Shane Rufer, Ricki Herbert, Stevie Wooddin and Stevie Sumner, NZ players at the 1982 World Cup, Spain. Simon Elliott (69 caps/6 goals) - NZ midfielder at the 2010 World Cup, South Africa. First XI - Wellington College 1991. NZ were undefeated at the 2010 World Cup. / 53 W O R L D C U P E P I G R A M S

FIFA World Cup 2010

The vuvuzelas create quite a noise; But they’re no match for All White noise.

Performance Assessments

The Nigerian Head of State puts his team in the can; For not winning the World Cup, they get the ban.

T R I B U T E T O A N O L D G E N E R A L

Brian Turner once signed for Chelsea FC. He had legs to boot in excelsis.

*Brian Turner, an English-born NZ midfielder/forward 1967-82: 59 caps/21 goals for NZ, inducted in to NZ Football Hall of Fame 1995. Joined Chelsea 1968-69 for a season, then Portsmouth. Became a regular at Brentford. Later a Mt Wellington stalwart in Auckland and also played in Australia for Wollongong Wolves. Turner’s last appearance for NZ was as a substitute against Brazil at the 1982 World Cup. 54 / N E W T O W N P A R K

(Football in the ’80s)

I remember Newtown Park on cold, winter days, sitting up in the grandstand with my mate John.

The crowd was chanting “C’mon DB Spats!!” and Mal Dunford was at the centre of Wellington United’s defence.

Who could forget his strong headers as he climbed above the shoulders of opposition strikers.

Those were the days of the national football league, that we watched with keenness on Sunday afternoons.

Declan Edge, David Chote and Mike McGarry were some of the visiting stars that drew us in to watch.

Newtown Park was our heart of football in those days. Many a good winter afternoon, we spent up in the stand.

*Now also the training park for the A-League Wellington Phoenix side. / 55 Harry Ricketts

S A N S O M E W A L K

Monday morning at the Motor Tax Office. Blonde Sandy, dark June discuss last night’s episode of The Forsyte Saga on the box.

‘Ain’t Irene a bombshell?’ says Sandy. ‘But that Soames, he’s a right stick,’ says June. Sandy walks out with Bob,

a diehard Wolves fan, who sits opposite me and doesn’t know she ‘was intimate’ recently with Michael in accounts.

We open envelopes, check registrations, watch the clock, replay Match of the Day. Rain taps Morse code on the windowpane.

Tea break. Crib. Michael deals. Pete flashes the ash, cuts: two for his heels.

Fifteen two, fifteen four, the rest don’t score. In the box, just one for his knob.

Pint, pie, arrows at The Mariners. (Chris, a double twenty to win.) Our daily fix of ‘I’m the Urban

Spaceman’. The rain’s stopped; it’s getting dark. By five, I’ve addressed exactly eighty-six dog licence reminders.

56 / Kendrick Smithyman

D I A L E C T I C

Marx was wrong. The quantitative does not become qualitative. Have you ever seen a dealer’s window full of TV sets reporting an English football match?

Negation is not negated.

*Poem originally found by Scott Hamilton in Smithyman’s archives at Auckland University Library. Smithyman wrote his poem reflecting on an overseas trip to the UK.

/ 57 Grant Sullivan

M A T C H D A Y

Black market memorabilia trading as football matches in the Premiership, commandant on the sidelines to his troops and they’ll kill Rooney if he signs for City, even in the shires where they drive Astons and discreet GTs.

Raw up north where grandad won the war and you’d better subscribe for life or you’re out son, you’ll miss every game and be seen in every tandoori palace, while we’re in the pillboxes discussing our orders ’cause no Arthurian legend’s gonna save us.

*Rooney - Wayne Rooney, Manchester United and England forward; City - Manchester City, United’s rival derby club.

58 / André Surridge

T H R E E H A I K U

Wembley at the back of the net his dream strike shoes too big for his sweaty feet the new manager emblazoned across her tee shirt Brazil or Bust

/ 59 Vanguard

P L A Y E R S ’ 1 2 C O M M A N D M E N T S

1. 11 comprise a team, not one. 2. The ball is made round to go round. 3. Thought is the parent of action. 4. Think before you shoot, not after. 5. No Prohibition. Put spirit into your play. 6. Play football; dance elsewhere. 7. Never carry on, you may be carried off. 8. Let spectators do the shouting, players the shooting. 9. Never lose your temper; you might lose your life. 10. Blows count in boxing, goals in football. 11. Self-conceit is the footballer’s greatest sin. 12. Stop with the whistle, not before.

*This piece was included in one of Vanguard’s football columns for The Evening Post, Wellington, New Zealand. It’s assumed he is the author as the piece is uncredited - although its authorship’s not for certain.

60 / Wembley

S C O T L A N D v . E N G L A N D

Hey, Jock, You may boast about your heather and that famous “Fifty-first,” But next weekend you’re for it, and again you’ll bite the dust. Yes, England’s playing Scotland, and your barbarous Hampden Roar, Plus your hideous screeching bagpipes, will not affect the score. It’s a pound note to a peanut that your “Thistle” will not sting, For the Rose will prove triumphant, and again with glee we’ll sing. So prepare to meet your victors, but don’t make any fuss, For on April 14, Saturday, Glasgow will belong to “Us.” Your Soccer Masters, WEMBLEY.

*Dated 1945. Presumably a war-time international when caps were not counted as official. ‘Wembley’ appears to be a one-off pseudonym (author unknown), and also the name of the old Wembley stadium (opened 1923) used as the venue for the FA Cup final and England international fixtures. Hampden - Hampden Park, Scottish football ground used for international fixtures. England-Scotland football rivalry dates back to 1872. ‘famous “Fifty-first”’ - Scotland 5 England 1, Wembley, 1928.

/ 61 Essay Feature

From A V A N I S H E D H A N D : M Y A U T O G R A P H A L B U M

London memoirist Anthony Rudolf writes on football autographs collected in his childhood autograph book from the 1950s.

A whole bunch of footballers come next, beginning with a signed photograph of the the well-loved inside-forward Jimmy Logie, for which I presumably wrote off to the Arsenal, quite likely enclosing a stamped addressed envelope. Despite being highly regarded, he played only once for his native Scotland. Wikipedia says he ended up working as a newsagent in Piccadilly Circus but I recall a press report that he was selling papers outside Leicester Square tube station, half a mile away. There is a suggestion that he gambled away the little money players of that generation earned; all the same, one can guess what he thought of George Best. Against his photograph I have written ‘censor’ which is very strange, since I have not written it against the signature of another Arsenal player of the fifties, the Welsh international and manager Dave Bowen on the next page, a player who showed up far less on my personal radar. These signatures, plus those of less successful players such as Joe Wade (he too stigmatised with the mark of the ‘censor’) and Don Bennett, I recall obtaining on a visit to a training session at Highbury, probably in 1955. Don Bennett also played cricket for Middlesex but his signature is here amidst the soccer players so, yes, he would have been among the soccer players I met on that visit to Highbury, along with Tommy Lawton, a very big name, whose career like so many was broken by the war and who played for Arsenal for two years from 1953. Unlike Joe Wade, there is no ‘censor’ against Lawton’s name. I was making a virtue out of necessity by going to Highbury, the nearest club to my home. The team I supported was Wolverhampton Wanderers – perhaps because they were the First Division champions in 1953–4,

62 / Jimmy Logie

/ 63 perhaps because their captain, Billy Wright, was England’s captain, but, to be fair, I remember liking the club’s name, which was the reason I backed Royal Tan in the 1954 Grand National, and duly won a bet with my father. I recall a parody of ‘My old man’s a dustman’: ‘My old man’s a dustman he wears a dustman’s hat, he bought a two bob ticket to see a football match. The ball was in the centre, the ha’penny whistle blew, fatty passed to skinny and down the wing he flew. Fatty passed to skinny, skinny passed to fat, fatty took a deep breath and knocked the goalie flat. Where was the goalie while the ball was in the net? Hanging from the goalpost with his trousers round his neck. Singing we can kick ’em, we can pass, we can kick ’em up the Arse . . . nal’. Over to Spotify to listen to Lonnie Donegan’s personalised version of the real thing. Here is a special page, pasted into the album: the torn off cover of the Arsenal versus Manchester United programme for their match on Saturday April 23, 1955. Seated in the row behind Uncle Isadore and myself was Leslie Compton, retired from playing but still working at the Gunners as a coach and scout. Older brother of my great hero, Denis Compton, Leslie played soccer for the Arsenal for twenty-two years and cricket for Middlesex for eighteen years. In 1955 he was still Middlesex’s wicket-keeper, albeit on the brink of handing the gloves over to John Murray. I was always pleased for Leslie, who in many respects was in the shade of Denis, that he was a full England soccer international (twice, in 1950, aged 38) whereas Denis only played in a War international, which did not count in the record books. Leslie did not play cricket for England. According to Wisden (with one of its rare references to sports other than cricket), he became England’s and remains England’s oldest soccer debutant. Given the modern cult of youth and fitness, it is a safe bet that this achievement will remain in the record books for ever. In 1947–48, Les and Denis created a fraternal record: playing in a County Championship-winning side in the summer and in the First Division champion football team the

64 / Leslie Compton autograph

/ 65 following winter. Les Compton, after retiring from sport, ran a pub on Highgate Hill. My friend Bob Trevor, old World Service sports journalist, former President of the NUJ and author of a charming memoir Blitz Boy, reckons it was the Angel. The local historical society doesn’t know, nor does the unofficial Middlesex historian, name and address supplied by Lord’s. In The Arithmetic of Memory, I wrote that Billy Wright was my winter hero, Denis Compton my summer hero. Wearing my own eternal tracksuit, I once saw Billy, also in a tracksuit, outside Waitrose in Whetstone, where he lived with his Beverley Sister wife, Joy. The Spice Girls the Sisters weren’t, although it is just possible Emma Bunton’s father delivered letters to Wright. On the reverse of Billy’s signed photograph is a message from Lucozade saying that they own the copyright in the photo and we are also told that ‘the sparkling glucose drink replaces lost energy’. I remember buying dextrosol tablets for energy from the chemists shop Hugh Lloyds in Market Place, not Dexedrine as I wrongly called it in The Arithmetic of Memory. I did not like the taste of Lucozade, formerly known as Glucozade. Apparently one 500ml bottle contains twenty one teaspoons of sugar. Sports sponsorship has been around longer than one realised, albeit using the fame of only a few famous players, such as Reg Harris, Billy Wright and the Brylcreem players. Stanley Matthews, vegetarian and teetotal, was paid to sponsor Craven ‘A’ cigarettes, which was a favourite brand among the working classes (just as Gary Lineker would advertise potato crisps forty years later). I had a collection of cigarette cards (which to my everlasting regret I gave away to a friend) but I did not realise that they were a form of advertising. Smokers like my father would give the cards in each packet to their sons, who with any luck would in turn become smokers. Stanley Matthews’ great rival and partner as an England winger Tom Finney of Preston North End, like many top players, had a day job. He was a plumber. The Centre

66 / for the Sociology of Sport quotes one authority (Russell, 1997, but not listed in the online bibliography) as saying: ‘Tom Finney’s last match at Preston in 1961 signalled the end of an era in which supporters and players shared local attachments and broadly similar lifestyles’. Stuck onto the album page after Billy Wright is a page torn from somewhere else: ‘To Anthony, with best wishes, Billy Steel’. Steel was a Scottish international forward who played for Dundee and ended his career as a precursor of David Beckham in Los Angeles. The flyleaf page was torn from Steel’s autobiography although heaven knows which person, doubtless one of my father’s clients, gave me the book. Against the page, I have written: ‘Censor (put back in book)’. I recall that I tore it out of the book in the first place because you wanted to show off autographs to friends and could not very well take the book along with the album wherever you went. Evidently I later felt some remorse at removing the flyleaf from the book. However, it remains in the album, doubtless because I lost interest in collecting autographs at a certain point and abandoned ship.

Anthony Rudolf

/ 67 Notes on Contributors

SIMON BOYCE grew up in Lower Hutt during the 1970s and ’80s, and played a lot of team sport around the Wellington region, including 10 years playing football for Lower Hutt City AFC. He now enjoys the more singular pursuit of distance running. JAMES BROWN is a Wellington poet and author of five full length collections of poetry all published by Victoria University Press. His latest collection Warm Auditorium includes ‘The Trialist’. P. S. COTTIER is a poet living in Canberra, who has captained both the Australian men’s and women’s football teams in their amazing World Cup victories. One part of that first sentence is even true. ALBERT CRAIG was a Surrey, England, cricket and football poet. He died in 1909. The poem included here was his last football poem written before the 1909 FA Cup final. His work was collected in Cricket and football: Rhymes, sketches, anecdotes, etc. of Albert Craig, the “Surrey Poet”, Cricket and Sports Publishers Ltd, 1910. JOHN DICKSON, b. 1944, currently lives in Christchurch, latest publication, Plain Song (CD) 2009. BEN EGERTON is a writer, teacher and poet from Wellington. He moved to New Zealand from England three years ago to take a teaching job in Wellington. Having temporarily left teaching, he is now studying at Victoria University for a Masters in Creative Writing. JOHN GALLAS was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1950. He moved to England to study Old Icelandic literature and has lived there ever since. Carcanet Press in Manchester, UK, publishes his poetry collections. Cold Hub Press in New Zealand published his chapbook series F .ing Poets recently. He supports Leicester City. C. W. GRACE (1862-1946) was a poet of the 1890s and the Maoriland period in New Zealand literature. Football may not have been his favourite game but he has given a good account of playing football in the 19th century. DYLAN GROOM is a young Hamilton poet. His father Michael Groom was an All White 1980-84: 20 caps/4 goals. Dylan knew current All Whites Marco Rojas and Chris Wood at school. He plays football at a high level for the Clube. VAUGHAN GUNSON is a writer and artist living in Hikurangi, north of Whangarei. A collection of his poems, this hill, all it’s about is lifting it to a higher level, was published by Steele Roberts in 2012. TIM JONES is a poet and author of both science fiction and literary fiction who was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. He lives in Wellington, 68 / New Zealand. His latest poetry collection is Men Briefly Explained (IP, 2011). GARY LANGFORD is the author of 31 books. His 10th novel, Sohrab (Last of the Giants) is an e-book with Amazon Kindle Press, 2013, while Steele Roberts published his fourth collection of stories, Lies,Truth and Blasphemy, 2013 and his 12th poetry collection, Unit 6, 3 Quake Road, 2014. DAVID McGILL is a Paekakariki writer mainly of fiction and non-fiction. HARVEY MOLLOY is a Wellington poet and author of Moonshot (Steele Roberts Ltd, 2007). MICHAEL O’LEARY is a Paekakariki poet, publisher, performer, bookshop proprietor, co-founder of PANZA (Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa), artist and novelist. His PhD on women’s writing in New Zealand 1945-70 was published in book form. The sonnet included here draws on his personal experience of seeing the Manchester United team play Auckland, 1967. O’Leary (aka the Earl of Seacliff) once had an Earl’s XI at Seacliff in Dunedin. BILL O’REILLY (1898-1959) was a Wellington poet and former Mayor of Thorndon. He was a well-known supporter of watersiders during the 1951 waterfront dispute. MARK PIRIE, the editor of broadsheet, is a Wellington poet, publisher, literary critic and archivist for PANZA. He played football 1983-1993 for Onslow Juniors, Wellington College and Victoria University as a left-sided midfielder or defender and was a free-kick and penalty taker. HARRY RICKETTS, an internationally published biographer, literary scholar, poet and editor, is Professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington. ANTHONY RUDOLF is a translator, poet and memoirist living in London. KENDRICK SMITHYMAN was a distinguished New Zealand poet and academic at Auckland University who died in 1995. GRANT SULLIVAN lives in Christchurch and was published in Poetry NZ 43. He has a BA in English from Canterbury University and has had various occupations. ANDRÉ SURRIDGE has won several awards for poetry and plays including the Jane Reichhold International Prize for haiku and the Shell Playwrights Award. He lives in Hamilton, New Zealand. VANGUARD was a New Zealand football critic/writer. The ‘list’ poem included here was found by the editor in one of his regular football columns for the Evening Post. WEMBLEY’s poem appeared in the popular “Postscripts” column to the Evening Post edited by Percy Flage (pseudonym of C. A. Marris). / 69