To celebrate the imminent second anniversary of this blog something different: instead of reviewing a collection, I have chosen to review a compellingly original anthology entitled Football is Poetry (Tonic Sta Press, 2021), the brainchild of Mark Coverdale, assisted by Owen Collins. Inspired by the formats of a match day programme and a football sticker book, the anthology is a celebration of ‘the beautiful game’ at all levels and introduces us to a wide variety of authors writing in a range of forms. Whilst there are some highly engaging prose pieces, including Owen Collins’ profoundly moving essay, Poetry for the 97, in which he reflects on the poetry written in response to the Hillsborough disaster, for the purposes of this review I intend to focus on the poetry.

I think what emerges most strongly for me from this anthology is the writers’ infectious enthusiasm for the game. Many of…