Toon Poetry
ANGELS PLAYING
FOOTBALL
!
Some weeks before he died
in 1988, the legendary
Newcastle United
footballer Jackie Milburn
was sitting in his
Ashington home with a
grand-daughter on his
knee. Outside, there was
thunder and lightning,
which frightened the wee
girl: ‘What’s that noise?’,
she asked her grandad
anxiously. ‘Don’t worry’,
‘Wor Jackie’ replied, ‘It’s
just the angels playing
football.’
It was this incident which
inspired the following
poem, given added
poignancy by the placing
of an Alan Shearer shirt
on the Gateshead Angel’s
prodigious back by local
fans before the 1998 F.A.
Cup Final!
!
!
18
Sprinkle my ashes on St.
James’s Park,
Fragments of goals on the
grass.
Hear the Gallowgate roar
in the dark.
All of my dreams came to
pass.
!
Pass me my memories,
Pass me the days,
Pass me a ball and I’ll
play:
!
Play with the angels,
Play on their wings,
Play in the thunder and
lightning.
!
I leave you these goals in
my will,
Snapshots of me on the
run.
I leave you these pieces of
skill,
Moments of me in the
sun.
!
Pass me my memories,
Pass me the days,
Pass me a ball and I’ll
play:
!
Play with the angels,
Play on their wings,
Play in the thunder and
lightning.
By Keith Armstrong
THE PLAYERS WITH THAT
PIGGYBACK
!
COMMON TOUCH
I love the players with that common touch,
’Jinky’ Jim Smith's nutmeg in his own box,
Albert Scanlon on the Coast Road bus,
boots wrapped up under his arm,
on his way to the game,
players with that common touch.
John McNamee swinging from a Roker
cross-bar,
Mirandinha in his wooly gloves.
Gascoigne chewing on a Mars Bar
before he takes a corner,
I love the players with that common touch.
As a postman, I once delivered packets
to John McGrath's door,
predicted the score
as he patted my head,
another player with that common touch.
Alan Suddick pulling shorts down
in the wall,
the triumphant leaps of Martins and Lua
Lua,
I love the players with that common touch.
Bobby Mitchell smiling behind the
Lochside bar,
the human decency of Frank Clark.
VEITCH
!
!
(in memory of Colin Campbell McKechnie
Veitch, 1881- 1938)
‘One man that has a mind and knows it can
always beat ten men who haven't and don't.’
George Bernard Shaw
!
Football brain,
you thought with your feet,
treading the boards
in a dynamic theatre
of passing action.
A winning way,
love of the glorious day
and a sense of history
from Heaton Park
to socialism.
Your story,
from the pulsing Tyne
to the Geordie trophy room,
keeps us hoping
on Gallowgate,
alive with dignity
and strong respect
for the ideal of community
and the black and white love
of fairness.
Battling away,
in a skilled midfield
and in the stinking trenches,
you fought
for your troubled lilting city
and all of those
who ever kicked a ball
in its intimate soulful
avenues.
My father took me
piggyback
to the people's game.
I felt the surge of the
Gallowgate end
beneath me
like the sea roaring
off Tynemouth.
I sensed the solidarity
of those football-mad
days
and my little heart
swelled with a Magpie
pride.
Black and white love
came to me early,
inherited down life's
straining seasons.
The throbbing crowd
lifted me
over tough shoulders,
the passion
surging with me
to the front
where I could share
the yearning dreams
for just a little glory.
Those terraces lit up,
made the blue star
glow.
We young and thirsty
Geordies
learnt quickly
to get drunk
on the back
of flowing football.
!
Colin Veitch made a total of 322 appearances for
Newcastle United, scoring 49 goals. He captained the
United side which won League Championships in
1905, 1907 and 1909, the FA Cup in 1910 and were
FA Cup finalists in 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1911, and
also represented England on 6 occasions.