Sport

Football fans

from Northern towns

hit the capital city

Sharp-dressed, pretty

sure to take the opportunity

to take in a record shop

and rifle through vinyl

score a winner

reach the final

Make their way to Covent Garden

Soul City stocks lots

of what they're after

Not the latest but the dateless

Her cover drive and how she ran
are now haram
under the rule of the Taliban

Can she stay in? For sure she can
She can't be out without a man
in ancient, new Afghanistan

She'd tackle assumptions and she'd score
but won't be playing any more
She's fallen foul of holy law

If England is an island
Is Wales an offshore reef?
Is Scotland an Atlantic bay?
What's Ian Botham's beef?

Is Hadrian's Wall a seaside prom?
Is Offa's Dyke a coast?
Does Botham know where the boundaries are?
Or has he missed the post?

Published in Women's Fightback 26, Autumn/Winter 2021

Kelly Lindsey, former head coach of the Afghanistan women’s football team – and before that, US international player – spoke to supporters before Lewes FC women’s home friendly against West Ham on 22 August. She has been working to secure safe evacuation of footballing women and girls from Afghanistan, along with the director of women’s football, a human rights lawyer and FIFPRO (the international professional footballers’ federation, their trade union body). “For seven days straight we’ve created a team in the US, a team in Australia, a team in Europe, we have passed the baton all day and all night to try to keep the process going and try to keep the pressure on and try to keep pushing the government and try to keep pushing sports organisations.“

More info about our cricket team here.

We're Lewes Lightning
We're a little bit frightening
We're hitting up a storm

We roar like thunder
Over and under
When we are on form

We're young and older
Fierce and bolder
Than you might have thought us

- a villanelle about this.

Kids needed somewhere safe to swim
so locals raised funds for a pool,
got sponsor forms and filled them in

Again they shook donation tins
to keep aquatics at the school,
to keep the children safe to swim

We only needed a draw.
We didn't even need to score
unless we let one in.
We didn't even need to win,

Just make sure they didn't.
The point the draw would have given
and the two it would take away
from the rivals we happened to be playing that day

would have been enough.
Surely an ask that's not too tough.
Surely a task even we couldn't fluff.

Published in Solidarity 589, 21 April 2021.

Europe’s richest football clubs have announced an exclusive Super League, but have met with near-unanimous opposition.

This article was published under a different title in Solidarity 587.

On 17 March, Clive Sheldon QC reported on the investigation he chaired into the sexual abuse of boys in football between 1970 and 2005. Five days later, the BBC began broadcasting its three-part documentary on the subject. Both the report and the documentary revealed the horrifying extent of abuse, the authorities’ failure to protect the boys, and the long struggle for justice.

Nicola Adams

Is dancing with Madams

Instead of with Misters

Ten points for the sisters