Part of Pompey in the Community’s tremendous work involves working with local primary schools to support literacy teaching. On 7th June, over 100 pupils from city and Hampshire primary schools came to Fratton Park for an Author’s Day with Dan Freedman. Dan writes the Jamie Johnson football stories that were turned into a BBC TV series which ran from 2015 until 2022.
At the time I originally wrote this article, Pompey in the Community was one of only ten football club-linked organisations in the country to have funding from the FA Premier League for this kind of literacy work. Again, this demonstrates how dynamic the team at the PitC is at linking football creatively with education.
The event, held in the Victory Lounge, was led by Sam Cleare of PitC. Sam spends most of his working week in local schools supporting learning, representing the charity and promoting the good name of our football club.
The pupils who visited Pompey on 7th June, were from Year 4, in the age bracket 8 to 9 years old. They threw themselves into the writing task, producing first drafts to take back to school and work into finished poems.
To help the youngsters get started on the task, it was suggested they write an acrostic poem. This means taking a word and using each letter from that word as the first letter of each line. You may have seen Richard Williams PLAY UP POMPEY acrostic poem in Tuesday night’s Exeter City programme, for example.
Many of the children at the event had family links to Pompey, but there were some with affiliations to other places, notably Plymouth, Leicester and a small town near Eastleigh. One of the most moving stories was from a young girl who said her dad had advised, “Don’t catch that Pompey illness!” When she told me about her dad’s football family story, I understood how important football is to him, her and their extended family. I recorded that moment in my brief piece of writing below.
From the whole day, there were some great lines, even if the poems were still at draft stage given the time available. For example, Fans like us, like loyal dogs by one pupil captures what it feels like following our team at times.
Onire wrote the following draft poem from his experience of playing football.
Tackle! I win the ball. Tackle! I fall to the floor.
Get up, get up! Steal!
Tackle! Steal the ball. Tackle. Defend the ball.
Let’s go! Let’s go! Shooot!
Defend! Defend the ball. Defend! Get the ball.
To the left. To the right. Score!
Defend! Defend the ball. Defend! Save the ball
Slide to the left. Slide to the right. Yes!
That is how playing football feels for this young player, with coach and parents shouting from the pitch side. We wish Onire every success with his football and writing.
The following brief piece of writing came out of a conversation with a pupil on the afternoon of the school writing project.
That Pompey Illness
My dad warned me
Don’t catch that Pompey illness
Liverpool is his team
Has always been
He’s crazy for them
We visit the ground each holiday
Is it spelled A-N-F-I-E-L-D?
He always lays flowers
For the cousin he lost
At Hillsborough
~
A version of this article first appeared in the Portsmouth FC match day programme v Cheltenham Town FC on 23rd August, 2023.
Chris Perry
Pompey Writers 