I love Rugby, I always have
But I find it hard to watch.
I get edgy, frustrated, twitchy
And afterwards I drink too much
And talk & brag about old times.

Ian "Chaucer" Hinchcliffe

Older I get, better I was,
Boring old fart in a bar.
So now I play Veterans.
I 've retired so many times,
Swore I'd never play again.
Addiction really, cigarettes or booze,

My wife laughs at me.
I can't walk properly for a week afterwards
And for what?
To turn out against Upper Bumworthian's 19th XV
On some foul bog miles from A clubhouse,
Watched by a stray dog and 2 seagulls.

There is an enchanted magic,
Inexplicable really
But for a time, usually 30 minutes each way
With a break, which we argue with the ref,
I come alive again.

My team, my mates, MY GAME!
Win or lose, I'm there,
Competing, playing on that field
And I'm so bloody proud to play,
I take that field amongst my mates
For our esteemed, if somewhat venerable
EXTRA "C"

Ode to a Tighthead Prop (Response)

The thing is, ‘tight-head’ prop isn’t poetic;
Nowt rhymes with it, it just is.
Hardest job on the field played by the hardest men.
He looks them in the eye, probes for weaknesses.
Just hits them, bangs-in, knocks ‘em hard, knocks ‘em back,
laughs at ‘em.

If he wins, the team wins.
All the ‘Nancy’ boys, they’re girls in the backs!
They only play this game because I am here doing the damage!
Yes, Me. The tight-head prop.
After the game, THEY drink their shandies with their blonde
girlfriends, talking bollocks.
but, they know (and I know), that the biggest man on a rugby
field is the winning tight-head prop.

The ‘Packhorse Poet’. August 2006.

Dear Ted is dead. They said
Dead to the Extra C; retired.
Though Paul says he’s still sacked
Dead is no excuse.
By text, Dale says.
‘Feck it’ said the Reverend Father.

Seems a shame really
His game might have improved
But then again probably not!
So Father Ted good luck in your retirement.
We might have had a whip round
But as you so succinctly put it
‘Feck it!'