Issue 13, May 2014
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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 OLeary broadsheet is published twice a year in May and November Subscriptions to: The Editor Flat 4C/19 Cottleville Terrace Thorndon Wellington 6011 Aotearoa / New Zealand http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com Cost per year $12.00 for 2 issues. Cheques payable to: HeadworX ISSN 1178-7805 (Print) ISSN 1178-7813 (Online) 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 OLEARY / 46 BILL OREILLY / 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 its 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 OReilly: 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 Ive 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 Id already collected. A few more turned up in books and at the National Librarys 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 Cloughs 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 OLeary on the cover), the national football league of the 80s, and NZs 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 Grooms 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. Its an honour to include Dylans 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 footballs 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 readers 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 authors 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 teams 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 authors 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 Zealands sporting history when football became a part of the collective consciousness of kids across the country the editor being one of them! Im sure, as well, that many readers will recollect New Zealands appearance in South Africa in 2010 (which came courtesy of Rory Fallons 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 Smeltzs 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, Im 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.