No. 1255: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were invited to describe in verse the performance of some modern sportsman through the eyes of a Romantic poet. The Romantics were not a natural bunch of sportsmen. As a cricketer Keats would have been 'off games', Shelley would have played truant to sail paper boats, Coleridge would have gone to sleep in the outfield and Wordsworth could only have found a role as an umpire. Byron alone redeems the dismal record. In 1805, representing Har- row against Eton at Lord's (the old Dorset Square ground) and batting just below Shakespeare in the order, in two innings he scored by his own account 18 runs, but ac- cording to the score-sheet only 9. Less a disputably, he took wicket as a bowler with an underhand lob, of course. Later Shakespeare in his reminiscences recalled: g, 'Lord Byron insisted on playing, and was allowed a person to run for him, his lameness impeding him so much.' Despite the poet's efforts, Harrow were 'most con- foundedly beat'. As for prizes, there were so many, it seemed to me, equally good entries that even with the aid of linesmen I found the go final decision agonising. So very bad luck, Peggy Sandars, Gerry Hamill and other regular scorers who put up a good show. The five winners printed below are awarded bonus bottle of Corton 19 £10 each. For his representation of Words- worth at the Sheffield Crucible George Sim- mers wins the bo64 — no, I tell a lie, the Corton was burgled a fortnight ago: it's Château Lyonnat 1962. They were a varied crew who met to wield Those not unpolished cues! Among them one With all the virtues of a rugged land,

Brave Eddie Charlton, plied a dogged trade, Directing globes above the perfect nap With honest, careful skill; his every stroke Was serious, a steady workman's act. Unhurried he, no panic ever marred That plain and open face, whoe'er the foe. Brash London youths and bland Canadians, Flamboyant Irishmen and pious Welsh They were alike to him; nor did he flinch From all the powers of tempest in the shape Of wild, discordant Higgins. On he fought Where other men might well concede the frame, And through his craft made honourable gain.

(George Simmers)

Thou of the hyacinthine Grecian curls, Endymion of our day, with centaur legs, Thou runnest down the pitch, not after girls! A moon of leather now thy passion begs. As one who at some antique Grecian play Felt heart and temple with the verse a-throb Where Sophocles winged the immortal soul To know the Gods and the Olympian way, I watch, and like the Cumae Sibyl sob: Thou shootest with fell force the clinching

goal!

I do not hear full-time the whistle blow. The pard of football bore me up to Heaven. What is all Helen's beauty to the toe

Of kissed and hugged and shoulder-carried Kevin?

(George Moor)

My heart leaps up when I behold

Big Daddy in mid-air: A vast amount of blubber can, When airborne, move the slowest fan; I feel it more when I've been sold A ringside chair!

The Child is Daddy of the Man:

And so I see, in all this maul,

Some distant intimation of the Fall.

(Jan Rut-Brown) I've flown first-class to every far-off shore;

Ten thousand golden heroes have I seen;

At many a glittering tourney I have been Where teeming crowds leaped in full-throated roar;

Much have I heard of champions of yore

With muscle hard, hand firm and eye serene; Yet nothing did their deeds of glory mean

Till I saw Jocky Wilson stout and sure.

Then felt I like some gaping astronaut Whose craft has sailed too near the source of light; Or doctor, who a million rats has taught By punishment and bribe to cease to bite,

But then finds one which sets the bait at

naught And, seeing the white coat, prepares to fight.

(J. H. M. Donald) 0 wild west wonder, wizard of the cue, Thou by whose magic touch the bright-hued spheres, Yellow and green and red and palest blue,

Are potted o'er the baize till none appears

Except the black: 0 thou whose frilly shirt Keeps every eye transfixed on the box While white gloves ease away a speck of dirt And slender fingers guide thy straying locks.

0 thou who swiftly strikest every shot, Whose wily foes, buoyed up with hopes of lucre, Deftly disdain the amorous globe to pot, And seek instead to trap thee in a snooker: 0 Hurricane, though thou has lost Pot Black, Thou shalt remain the champion of the pack.

(Charles Carr)