The Poetry Club gathered at Penydarren Park for beverages, sarnies and a pre-match chat.
   There's no such thing as Merthyr Poetry Club but, no matter, five of us
( Al, Julie, Bernard , Phil and myself) from the Open Mic at the Imp took up the invitation to attend the home game v. Cambridge City on March 25th.
   On the way the steps were open again, but the Tregenna Hotel looked run-down.
   Memories take short-cuts.
   For me this fixture was Nostalgia United, as City happened to be the first team I ever supported : from ten years old parking my bike outside Milton Road or, at nights, sneaking in dangerously over high wire fencing.
   In the clubhouse, the Atrium, Merthyr FC was starting to bustle.
   A row of hospitality rooms would soon full up with various groups and, before long, Webley's bar was 'eavin' and we were all ready to read poetry to......
   Well, it didn't work out ; but maybe next season, with a mic stationed in the bar.
   Al was coming over all Zen and declaring we'd actually 'died' and were invisible.....he announced this in such a perky way that it seemed quite attractive!
   However, our task lay ahead : to write poems about the game, to be used in future programmes and also part of the club's literacy scheme, working with local schools. Some of us behaved like proper writers, taking notes and photos.
   I made a bee-line for the Cambridge supporters, just a handful who'd come as stowaways on the team bus.
   We reminisced about the old days when they had their own ground (Milton Road), long knocked down.
   In the programme was a report of Merthyr v. Cambridge City in 1971 and I recognized more of the latter's players.....amazingly , the great Welsh international winger Cliff Jones among them! 
   Talking to them - one with country accent and the other an urban cockneyfied one - took me back........
   I did so much growing up inside that small stadium and a few away trips I went on with my mates from the Grammar school.
   In Cambridge, you were City or United and they were both in the same league at that time ( must've been Southern Premier).
   Evening matches were best , as the darkness added to the furtive riskiness of the place........back of the main stand smoking Consulate; bored and playing our own games on the adjacent training pitch, so sometimes our plastic ball would be kicked over into a goalmouth melee on the actual field! ; courting couples in the ditch alongside the training pitch we'd goad , but ,above all, the chanting.
   I loved the chanting ( as I still do ) : the sense of belonging to a tribe, wearing the colours, sharing stories.
   Rugby friends use the word 'tribal' in a derogatory way in relation to football, but for me it's always been a question of identity.
   As my own family were fracturing, with separation and then the messy business of divorce, it gave me an alternative one and even when my best mate Lart was brutally attacked at a Cup game in Hendon, we still carried on following our team.

   The Cambridge team which took on Merthyr seemed to consist mainly of young players, in contrast to my memories of a team made up largely of retired pros and those who hadn't made it professionally.
   We Famous Five poets sat in the shade of the Grandstand on a typical sunny day on the Costa Taffia.
   At one end of the stands opposite was a sign declaring the club's proud fan ownership, on the other the sponsorship by rapacious opencasters Miller Argent...... the uplifting and mercenary aspects of club survival!
   Merthyr were on their worst run all season and had three key players out injured or suspended ( McLaggon, Reffell  and Prosser).....though, luckily, the latter was on the bench.
   However, Town were expected to win comfortably against a team second from bottom , yet struggled till an excellent Barrow free-kick shortly before half-time.
   No players kicked up arrow-heads on the fine, carpeted 3G pitch.
   The first half was dull, but at least my Eggman friend Al was wrong with his prediction of 0-0.
   Phil had disappeared to sit in the reporters' box, his habitual perch.
   Al and I yearned for that legendary curry and chips, so we decided to move on and gain entry to the stands simply by announcing ourselves as 'the poets'.
   I met my good friend and Merthyr fanatic Roger on the Theatre Royal end, getting a tan and contemplating writing his next match report for the programme in sonnet form ( now there's an idea!).
   On the sunny side we feasted on veggie curried chips as tasty as Merthyr's football became.
   The sauce was prophetically the colour of Ryan Prosser's beard and I told Al he'd come on and transform the game.
   Sure enough, Prosser scored with his very first touch ( his 150 goal for the club) and new signing Josh Bull had an equally powerful impact getting another.
   On the wing. Ian Traylor was a different player, scoring with a flick and a pen. 5-0 !
   With some fans still en route back from Cymru v. Iwerddon the attendance was somewhat depleted, but this result should give Merthyr the boost they need to reach the play-offs and then, to quote a cliche, anything can happen.
   Football is all about raising money, connecting with the community, working with charities, sosializing and sharing memories, but ultimately it's about bringing hope.
   Merthyr, like so many places blighted by poverty, needs this so badly.

  ( Look out for our poems in forthcoming Merthyr Town FC programmes.
This is one I wrote specifically to read to the Cambridge fans, though it never happened. )

Cambridge City, My First Team
 
Got the scar to prove it
white line above left knee
where we sneaked in:
wire fence , torn jeans, cut skin.
 
Rivalry with United,
same league then
and always two huge fans
to fight and settle it.
 
Evening games couples snogging
we’d annoy with ‘Pull it out!’ ;
one girl surrounded by boys,
all hands were snaking.
 
Away games , Corby full of Scotsmen,
celebrating on the field with the team;
Hendon, my best mate attacked,
blood spurting as we stood, aghast.
 
Always the one character (or nutter!),
bloke with a shopping bag
of bottles who railed at the ref,
walked round the ground never stopping.
 
My first team , my school next door
to a ground since knocked down ;
though United won trophies
I learnt barbed love and loyalty.

   

                                  KIPPER  TOWERS
 
 
At the bottom of my hill
They’re building a UKIP store,
Going to be whiter than the White House.
 
It’ll be the size of 15 football fields,
It’ll make the Pound shops go spare,
They’ll be no point in the town centre.
 
Soon they will be selling
Retro gollywogs courtesy of Bloom,
Farage beer-glasses made in China.
 
There’ll be Nuttall crackers
And Trump gropers resembling tongs
With the President’s face on.
 
There’ll be Bennett bins
To put the foreign muck in ;
Hamilton masks, two-faced, for Hallowe’en.
 
There’ll be Gill wind-up dolls
Which will explode like fracking,
Marine pens full of poison.
 
There’ll be Geert Wildebeest
Cuddly toys which will bite
Your children while they’re sleeping.
 
They’re calling it Kipper Towers,
Won’t employ Poles or Portuguese
(Unless they work for nothing, all hours).
​

  This week Europe's biggest opencast coal-mine ( it's really more of a vast quarry) at Ffos-y-fran above Merthyr Tudful has been in the News.
   As a result of an investigation by the UN's special rapporteur on hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak, the UN is urging an independent investigation into its potential health impacts.
   The mining company Miller Argent simply rejected the residents' complaints as 'fake news' and accused Mr Tuncak of bias.......

Fake dust
fake diesel
fake fumes

Fake News!

fake noise
fake coughs
fake moans

fake asthma
fake insomnia
fake pollution

fake bribes
fake terms
fake disease

Fake News!

fake blasts
fake rumbles
fake fears

fake reports
fake allegations
fake interviews

Fake News!

fake people
fake houses
fake views

fake dust
fake diesel
fake fumes

Fake News!
Fake News!
​Fake News!     

   A few weeks back saw the launch of an Endowment Scheme by WAG Education Minister, Liberal Democrat Kirsty Williams. It was greeted with enthusiasm by the Welsh Arts Council.
   The money pledged by WAG was the sum of £1 million and the scheme will come into operation by 2020.
   BBC Wales acknowledged the importance of music in schools by showing various ensembles and children talking about its benefits.
   The idea is to raise corporate and private finance to match this spending.
   The actual details of the Endowment have not been explained, but the nature of such schemes is normally one of grants given to gifted children from poorer backgrounds.
   This would be a way of enticing private sponsors, who would gain maximum publicity from it.
   Of course, it's praiseworthy that WAG are actually doing something, however the reality of the situation is that orchestras have either disappeared in certain authorities, or are in the process of doing so.
   By 2020, youth orchestras such as those in RCT and Merthyr will be so small they'll have to be called 'chamber' ones!
   In RCT ( as explained in a previous blog) peripatetic music teachers were systematically forced out of their jobs by a Labour authority making drastic cuts ( effectively, doing the Tories dirty work).
   Now, pupils cannot be taught by these 'peris' and parents must pay for the weekly orchestral rehearsals.
   It's not an exaggeration to say that Williams' action is far too little, far too late.
   It may well give a few talented individuals the opportunity to attend instrumental or singing lessons outside school, but this will not secure the orchestras' future and the continuity of both National Youth Choir and Orchestra in the long run.
   My younger daughter plays in RCT Orchestra, the Four Counties and sings in the Glam Choir.
   She loves the experience of playing and singing a wide variety of music, socializing, attending courses and performing in many different venues.
   Both my older children played with the 'Nash' ( National Youth Orchestra) and always relished the challenge and also fun of it all.
   The benefits are immense : playing as a team, the discipline of practicing and confidence gained from performing.
   Among the world famous musicians produced by this system are Karl Jenkins and John Cale . 
   Just as surely as it has become a peripheral subject within the curriculum, so we are marginalising music in the 'Land of Song'.
   If we cannot afford to finance it properly and in a sustainable way, we might as well alter the words of 'Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' and cut out the 'chantorion' entirely!
   Sadly, in terms of poetry, education is following the self-same route.
   Statistically, all that matters to school performance indicators are literacy and numeracy and these are summed up by the ludicrous testing regime begun so early.
   In this context, the writing of poetry is fast becoming a yearly task ( for school Eisteddfodau ) and little else. 
 Apart from grand schemes based around Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl, it's rare for writers to conduct workshops in our schools.
   Doing workshops recently at CCFC stadium, I asked one Year 5 teacher whether her class had written any poetry.
   'Not this year,' she replied ( i.e. from September - February), 'we've been too busy with other things.'
   The kids were, as ever, very imaginative and enthusiastic, but it was soon obvious they had no experience of writing poetry and most wrote in prose, even when they rhymed.
   Poetry can give the majority of children a way to express their feelings : it's short, intense and should free them from formula.
   This is exactly how I began, writing about my family : brought up by my mother and with a difficult relationship with my father.
   As far as our school students are concerned, that whole line 'Gwlad beirdd a chantorion' will only apply to the past.
   As to the future, I am pessimistic when it comes to opportunities.
  We seem to have accepted austerity as a way of life, a 'given', and not policy choice ( and one which is counter-productive).
   An Endowment Scheme may sound impressive, but goes no way towards solving the urgent problems of today : the loss of peripatetic teachers and neglect of music in schools.
  In reality, we are the 'Land of Attainment Targets' not ' Song'!



                                 ATTIC   MUSIC

The bird that was trapped in the attic,
one we neither saw nor heard
could have dislodged them.

All I know is, they fell and floated
down from the square opening,
white feathers in dots and lines.

We caught and collected them :
Debussy, Elgar, Saint-Saens ,
annotated for your fingering.

Each one a testament to hours
of practice ; the mirror on the landing
where you sought perfection.

The plastic bag had been tattered,
the music within musty but intact.
The bird had died or escaped.

So we put them back together
by that long, slim mirror,
feather upon feather, compiling.

One day you'll take them away
and they will fly from your bow
over the moor into the sky.