Inner Goal: The Poetry of Football... a Journey in Rhyme [Illustrated] [Paperback]

"The beautiful game in all its guises in the street, in the ground, in the memory, in the heart. Poetry with balls." Michael Foreman "One of the pioneers of football poetry. Who ate all the pioneers?" Attila The Stockbroker --Submitted direct from M.F

"One of those amazing people with an obsessive passion and love..who can move people" Steve Wickham /The Waterboys --Submitted direct from A.T.S

INNER GOAL by Crispin Thomas "What chance of filling a book with football poetry , much of it intended for performance, and making it a satisfying read? Chances were slim until I saw Crispin Thomas' Inner Goal. It's a whimsical book , swinging from nostalgia for Crispin's footie heroes from the 50s to sharp criticism of racism to environmental issues. All the while he dresses everything in a deceptive fluffy aura and slips in some sweet subversive ideas. Simplicity is his key to writing and what makes this book a succcess. Many have been read at workshoips run by Crispin at football clubs like Chelsea, getting children to write as part of the Kick it Out campaign, and the resulting quick , point making poems work well in that context. At their best , the poems have an aura of childlike awe and joy in the game and its exponents and the possibilities that such an international language of ball-kicking opens up - and when that haoppens , he really oculd be "swapping shrts with Shakespeare". Adam Horovitz. --Stroud new & Journal

CRISPIN THOMAS Best described as a maverick performance poet , Crispin brings a self-confessed child-like innocence in rhythm and rhyme to page and stage. A delightful, sardonic mix of verse and off-the-wall humour. The editor of the Football Poets web-site, recently archived by The British Library, his poems have been included in many formats, including the Channel 4 Writing 4 Kicks TV series. Crispin works with the National Literacy Trust s Kick Into Reading programme, in addition to his own workshops in schools, football clubs, prisons and study support centres. He has performed solo at five Glastonbury Festivals, where he once introduced Rolf Harris in a complete Darth Vader outfit, you get the picture! He s graced Cheltenham Festival of Literature, The Royal Festival Hall, the FA HQ, countless festivals and poetry venues. He s appeared alongside leading UK poets including John Hegley, Attila The Stockbroker & John Cooper Clark . Crispin has performed (from his own shed!) on BBC 1 TV, and also on Channel 4, HTV Wales, Central TV, Five Live, Sky Sport and national radio. In 2000 he gigged in San Francisco at the Paradise Lounge and Brain Wash, a venue inside a laundromat! In 2006 he was invited by Kick It Out to perform at the House of Lords and by The British Council to run workshops in Porto and Berlin. Born in Earls Court, London in 1948, his garden backed onto the Troubadour, a classic early beat, poetry and folk music café. His father David Thomas was a CND founder member and highly regarded topographical landscape artist, who he finally met when he was fifteen! His mother Diana was a song-writer/poet and his influential grandmother Renée De Vaux, taught drama at the Webber Douglas Drama School until her late eighties. As a child, his godfather was Terry Thomas who he remembers fondly. He has been writing since the early sixties and has been married for forty years. A flower shirted vegetarian since 1967, he s lived in a cave in Matala, Greece, long before Joni Mitchell ,kept goats in Wales and also ended up in Africa for seven years. For the past 16 years he has run CTM, a traditional music agency with artists from Ireland, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. He lives with his wife Jennie in a cottage near Stroud. They have two children, Mathew and Damian and two grandchildren Zac and Freya. He has supported Chelsea FC since 1956, in case you hadn t noticed! "Wacky , funny and downright mad..but also serious" Kick it Out " Eccentric!" Central TV