Football’s bardest men
Meet the poets using rhyme and reason to celebrate Scotland’s beautiful game in verse
IT’S not often Scottish football is likened to poetry.
But a trio of writers have been signed to celebrate the national game in verse.
They have been enlisted as poets In residence at three clubs to celebrate the highs and lows of a fan’s life – from dreich midweek defeats to Scottish Cup glory.
A friendly rivalry between the three led to a world first last week as Dumbarton’s Stephen Watt emerged the victor in a Poetry and Penalties shootout in the Borders village of Stow.
He defeated St Johnstone’s Jim Mackintosh and Selkirk FC’s Thomas Clark in a competition where each had to recite some verse before attempting a spot kick.
And on Wednesday, the three will join other contributors to the Scottish football magazine Nutmeg for a night of conversation and debate at Partick Thistle’s ground, Firhill.
Here, each of them reveals the challenge of immortalising the beautiful game in verse.
Three up front: Stephen, Jim and Thomas.
WHEN managers part company with clubs, fans often wonder if the backroom staff will be leaving too.
And that was when Thomas Clark knew he’d made it as Poet In Residence of Selkirk FC.
“A wee while ago, when our manager left, someone asked if his backroom staff had gone as well,” he explained.
“When the answer came back ‘Yes’, the guy asked ‘Does that include the poet?’
“I don’t know what answer he was hoping for, but when I heard that, I knew I’d hit the big time.”
Librarian Thomas, 37, signed with Selkirk FC two years ago, but he’s not the first bard to ply his trade in Scottish football. “We have previous for it at Selkirk,” he added. “A club historian was digging through the archives recently when he found some poetry from the ’50s, written under the pseudonym of The Selkirk Ball Boy.
“So the poetry angleisn’tthatnew – football chants, football songs, football poetry, they’re as old as the game itself.”
And though his side toil in the relatively lowly Scottish Lowland League, Thomas reckons his poetry, and the work of colleagues Jim and Stephen is more important than writing about megabucks English or Spanish football.
“I suppose the poet-inresidence at Barcelona has got it made,” he explained. “All he has to write about is winning games.
“Stephen, Jim and I have to do a lot more than that.
“We’ve got to write about why football matters, why our clubs matter, why getting beat 5-1 by East Kilbride on a wet Wednesday night is just as important – more important – than winning the FA Cup or the Manchester derby.
“That’s a hard sell, but I think we’re making a decent fist of it, between the three of us.”
“Folk sometimes get put off because they think poetry is only about certain things, like grand romances and big, epic stories, but that’s not true,” said Thomas.
“Anything that’s worth caring about is worth writing a poem about, and to me and millions of other people across the globe, football is definitely something worth caring out.”
Thomas is especially proud of a poem he wrote for The Bobby Johnstone Cup between Selkirk and Hibs, a tribute to the legendary Scotland forward of the’40sand’50s.
“Bobby Johnstone terrorised defences as part of the legendary Famous Five forward line when he played for Hibs, and he did the same for Scotland on more than a few occasions.
“But he was a Selkirk man before all that, and I’ve written a few poems about him. I wrote this poem about his goal against England in 1951, when he scored on his Scotland debut in a 3-2 win at Wembley.
“I know it’s a cliché, but a guy like Bobby would wind up with a hundred caps for Scotland if he was playing now. The current crop just can’t compare.”
Barcelona’s club poet must have it made... always writing about winning