ALTHOUGH fans may wax lyrical about the artistry of football, poetry is not usually associated with the beautiful game. However, a new poetry book is reaching places poems don’t normally reach – including the Tartan Army’s sporrans.
A little book of poetry first published to mark Scotland’s men’s team qualifying for the Euros has been updated with new poems and pictures to celebrate the team’s return to the World Cup after 28 years in the wilderness.
“We should really honour that, you know, this huge moment in time,” said poet Julie McNeill, who is Poet-in-Residence for St Mirren Football Club Charitable Trust, the only female poet – as far as can be established – attached to a professional football club in the UK, perhaps in the world.
She is also the Makar for The Hampden Collection, set up to preserve and protect Scotland’s footballing heritage.
It’s hoped this edition of We Are Scottish Football will sell as well as the first which raised money for the Tartan Army’s Sunshine Appeal.
“It’s a pocket-sized book which is great because when people were flying to go and watch Scotland in the Euros, they would put it in their bag, put it in a sporran, or put it in their pocket,” said McNeill.
“It’s the most photographed book I’ve been involved in. It’s been everywhere because it sold really well. Part of that was to do with the Tartan Army Sunshine Appeal as all those people got behind it with some of the poems being read at meetings and things like that. It was really great and reached places that poetry doesn’t usually.”
One of these places was Sportscene where one of the poems was read out.
“That’s not a place I ever imagined poetry would be,” McNeill said. “I’ve also read football poetry at places like Belladrum Festival and other places where you would imagine that poetry might not be a kind of natural bedfellow.
“I think football gives poetry that access and a kind of common language which is lovely.”
While McNeill is a St Mirren fan and the photographs that illustrate the book were taken by Partick Thistle fan Campbell Ramage, the pair have managed to put their allegiances to one side to produce the book, although they do indulge in some good-natured banter.
However, it perhaps says a lot about their respective teams that they often find themselves more interested in the fans and rituals than what’s happening during play.
“A lot of the poems in the book are not actually about the things that happen in the 90 minutes on the pitch,” said McNeill. “I was writing about my children, or about fans, or about things that I was finding exciting or interesting – the kind of rituals that people go through before they go to a football game and how traditions are passed down through family. It’s the people that I am really fascinated by.”
They may not be obvious bedfellows but McNeill believes poetry and football are actually very compatible.
“There’s not many things in life like that, that draw out the emotions, the highs and lows,” she said. “Football kind of builds your character, your strength and your resilience.”
Although she is a poet she admits that not everyone is drawn to poetry and credits Ramage’s photographs for adding appeal to the book.
“I’m a huge fan of poetry but not everybody is and what Campbell has done is take those poems and interpret them in a completely different way,” she said.
“He has taken them to a new audience because he thought about the message of the poem, not just the title or the subject, and would go away and interpret that in a photograph. It was very exciting to have that dynamic and have something completely different.”
Ramage said the challenge of finding ways to illustrate the book had been good fun.
“It was something different to do – for example, the only gravestone in the world that has a football carved on to it, as far as I know, is in the Necropolis in Glasgow, so that saw me walking round the graveyard in the snow with a bunch of flowers to find it.”
One of the poems in the book talks about the many ways the Tartan Army are trying to get to the Word Cup which McNeill said she found fascinating.
“People were joking about hiring a submarine so Campbell went off to Maryhill where there is a boat at the canal that looks like a submarine and photographed that,” she said.
Both are hopeful Scotland will make it through the first stage but McNeill admits it is a difficult World Cup politically.
“People have mixed emotions about travelling to it and supporting the regime in America and things like that,” she said.
“But there is still that bit that’s so exciting about being there, being part of it and that is something you just rally behind. I think whatever happens it will be a really exciting summer.”
We Are Scottish Football: World Cup Edition is published by Edinburgh-based Luath Press
