On The Frome Double

On The Frome Double
I

Was that the demon of Frome?
The Frome flyer? Robin-red John
In cricket whites? Or Lady Luck I saw
Walking across Shearwater Lake
While a kingfisher streaked
Out of Berkeley woods
As a bluebell in flight
Through a Mendip May morning?
And have all those legendary feet
Of ancient time returned
As Mark Salter, scorer of 37
Vintage first team goals
In Frome Town’s winging flight
From the Western League Premier
And into the heights
Of the Southern League?
No, no. This day dream was real.
It wasn’t Lady Luck
Or any of these ghosts,
It was: Richard Fey, Edward Quelch,
Adam Missiato, Paul Farrell,
Jonathan Crowley, Jamie Cheeseman,
Stewart Bryant, Jack Metcalf,
Daniel Harvey, Steven Hunt,
Leigh Burke, Alex Lapham,
Sam Duggan, Joe Gomes,
Simeon Allsion, Dean Caslake,
Liam Fussell, Ian Kennedy,
Shaun Percival, Mark Salter,
Matthew Rawlins, Danny Thompson.
II

A goal kick away
From Badger’s Hill, believing
In King Arthur and England’s quest
For a holy grail called the World Cup.
I learned to read from a football Book
Written by Kim and Tony, while
Alf the groundsman dubbined
That leather medicine ball we played with
In Rodden Estate fields
My mother washed the club’s ten red shirts,
One green, numbered 1-11
In big white numbers: the whole
Of Frome Town hung out to dry.
Now, forty years on, giant-killing Frome
Have their wings on the Somerset Cup
And a claw hold in the Southern league
And the whole Mendip valley is soaring.
Let’s paint the town robin red
And sing the names of local heroes
In a cider-summer glow.
Richard Fey, Edward Quelch,
Adam Missiato, Paul Farrell,
Jonathan Crowley, Jamie Cheeseman,
Stewart Bryant, Jack Metcalf,
Daniel Harvey, Steven Hunt,
Leigh Burke, Alex Lapham,
Sam Duggan, Joe Gomes,
Simeon Allsion, Dean Caslake,
Liam Fussell, Ian Kennedy,
Shaun Percival, Mark Salter,
Matthew Rawlins, Danny Thompson!

Note: I'm sick to death of England and its Premiership primadonna pantomime-booing carthorse carry-on and it's also a bit of a quiet, suck it and sneer time to be a Bristol City fan. So as the season kicks off, I'm defaulting all the way back to my Frome Town roots with a poem written in celebration of their great triumph the season before last. To all the Badger's Hill believers...

Ruby Wedding Red Plus Six

Forty years today, following the reds
From the Bristol derby at Eastville,
October 3 1964 (1-1, Bush) to
2-2 at Saltergate with ten men,
(Murray, Coles) usually at least one
Division below where, at our best,
We would grace the game, and you dare
To ask, would I do it all again?
Of course not! (All right then, yes.)


October 2 2004

And six years later, securely one division up on that, aged 54 and now a fan of forty six years it's still YES. The new season is sitting with the key in the ignition, after a false start that might be just nothing or might be a problem with fuel or carburettor or electrics, but the seat belt is on and we have the England number one in goal. Never saw that coming. Come on you reds.