COMPETITION

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On the ball

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1803 you were invited to provide some Gazzaesque lines of verse on the subject of soccer. Is Gascoigne a better poet than most poets are footballers? A tough question, the answer to which can be gauged from the first four lines of his poem written. while recovering from his knee injury in 1991: 'I'm a professional footballer

Lying in a hospital bed

Thinking of all those nasty things

All going through my head.'

I was impressed by the number of you who essayed the Geordie accent — pretty successfully, it seemed to southern me. Martin Woodhead went the other way and had Gazza composing a villanelle. The winners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Drummond's Pure Malt Scotch whisky goes to John E. Cunning- ham.

My mates would take it out of me, And hear them crowds — `Gazza's a poof!' — But since I gotta lotta oof The Open University Has taught me loads of poetry: And, tell you now the honest troof,

makes it up, like, on the hoof—

It comes just natural, you see! You set the play the way you wannit, Tackle, and give your mark a streamer, Jink, and the goalie's out and flat. It's just the same to net a sonnet. . .

Next week we're doing terza rima — I'll have a nogginful of that!

(John E. Cunningham) It's a canny way to Italy — You canna take the bus! And, like, it's full of foreigners Who just don't think like us.

They take the training serious, like — I canna be doing with 'em!

I've always got on well enough With me natural sense of rhythm.

I wish I were back in Blighty, man, Just kickin' a ball around And havin' a bevvy afterwards — Gettin' well Newcastle Browned!

But no, I'm stuck in Italy, And it's bollock-numbingly boring.

(They've got some canny lasses, mind, So I've done me bit of scoring.) (Peter Norman) 'Wor Jackie was me daddie's idol till 'Is grandad's marra clogged 'im doon the pit; Me uncle learnt me 'ow ta weep at will, An' Grandma learnt.me 'ow ta gob an' spit.

Me cousin was a Milburn born an' bred; She laced the boots o' Bobby Charlton's mam; When I was risin' seven, in Gateshead, I spewed me goots oop onto Auntie Pam.

'Avin' the basic skills, I trained to get Pissession o' the ball, an' foul the back, An—it the corner of the f**kin' net: 'Yer divvn't nivver dare gi' me the sack,'

I said, then signed oop wi' an Eyetie side, Got fat, an', injured, let me country doon. When England got knocked out, I cried and cried; I'm Golden Ga77a, fitba's genius cloon.

(Ted Walker) 'Keep your feet still, Geordie hinny', Mi Granna used ti croon, But put a ball afore 'em An' they sang a different tune.

Me an' the ball were special, I canna work it oot — Me teachers a'ways used ti say Me brain wor in me boot.

Daft as a brush they ca'd me, I dare weel say th' or right. I wanted nowt more oot o' life Than wearin' black an' white. So when I send me marker Wrong-footed with a curse, That's what I call me po'try — This is nowt but verse.

(Noel Petty) They think my life's goal after goal, And giving mouth and laying birds, But me, I think I play a role

Abroad as big as Kenneth Hurd's; And gawping down the groupies' fichus I often ponders larger issues — Like: what we got Positions for?

And wherefore whither was we sent?

The bottom line's to make your score And hope the referee's not bent; 'Cause, win or lose, the pay's the same — Let's face it: life is just a game. (Alyson Nikiteas)