Thank you to Nick Beswick for this poem, if you have any sport-inspired creative works – send them to claire@sportparkinsons.org and we will feature as many as we can!
Football and me – Pennine Parkies FC match day and the opposition free from any condition such as ours look across and sneer in ungainly mob we twitch, we move we shake, we shuffle we look incapable we talk in muffle they look, they stare, they quickly judge perhaps we’re drunks they shoo their children
away from us
for fear of damnation
for fear of contamination
they look at us
in pure disgust
but when the whistle
blows the start
we move the ball
from steady foot to steady foot
they look, they stare,
they continue to judge
they care not a jot
how much they misjudge
as slick pass upon pass
is finished deftly but surely
they refuse to believe
they will not be budged
ignorant
of the facts
they misjudge
they misjudge we look, we smile we enjoy our moment our moment when football means precious minutes we can glide on the pitch no longer we shake no longer we twitch no, for those glorious minutes as the match it unfurls we are free from our shakes we are back we are back not being who they want us to be not being who we were or even who we are but simply just being just being that’s all free from constraint like artists we paint such images of joy which nourish the dark moments to come until the next game and the next time we leave them now the non PwPs wondering how looking ill looking pale ill at ease the whistle blows the game is done and as we thank them one by one we see them shuffle, we see them fumble we see them stare we hear them mumble sorry to have judged so sorry to misjudge you are no different off the field as you are on it our knowing smiles we see it every day which is why we love football the positive power we take from these sublime moments of play nourish our body, our mind and our resilient soul until the next time the place we want to be our team, our voice Pennine Parkies FC