ANGELS PLAYING FOOTBALL

George Robledo & Jackie Milburn







Some weeks before he died in 1988, the legendary Newcastle United footballer Jackie Milburn was sitting in his Ashington home with a grand-daughter on his knee. Outside, there was thunder and lightning, which frightened the wee girl: ‘What’s that noise?’, she asked her grandad anxiously. ‘Don’t worry’, ‘Wor Jackie’ replied, ‘It’s just the angels playing football.’

It was this incident which inspired the following poem, given added poignancy by the placing of an Alan Shearer shirt on the Gateshead Angel’s prodigious back by local fans before the 1998 F.A. Cup Final!

Sprinkle my ashes on St. James’s Park,

Fragments of goals on the grass.

Hear the Gallowgate roar in the dark.

All of my dreams came to pass.

Pass me my memories,

Pass me the days,

Pass me a ball and I’ll play:

Play with the angels,

Play on their wings,

Play in the thunder and lightning.

I leave you these goals in my will,

Snapshots of me on the run.

I leave you these pieces of skill,

Moments of me in the sun.

Pass me my memories,

Pass me the days,

Pass me a ball and I’ll play:

Play with the angels,

Play on their wings,

Play in the thunder and lightning.

                                                                               

Keith Armstrong

THE MELLY-BELLY SONGS/FIVE SEA SONGS

VEITCH

(in memory of Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, 1881-1938)

‘One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.’ George Bernard Shaw 

Football brain,

you thought with your feet,

treading the boards

in a dynamic theatre

of passing action.

A winning way,

love of the glorious day 

and a sense of history

from Heaton Park

to socialism.

Your story,

from the pulsing Tyne

to the Geordie trophy room,

keeps us hoping

on Gallowgate,

alive with dignity

and strong respect

for the ideal of community

and the black and white love

of fairness.

Battling away,

in a skilled midfield 

and in the stinking trenches,

you fought

for your troubled lilting city

and all of those 

who ever kicked a ball

in its intimate soulful avenues.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Colin Veitch made a total of 322 appearances for Newcastle United, scoring 49 goals. He  captained the United side which won League Championships in 1905, 1907 and 1909, the FA Cup in 1910 and were FA Cup finalists in 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1911, and also represented England on 6 occasions. 

Heaton History Group and Chris Goulding successfully campaigned for a commemorative plaque to be displayed on Colin Veitch’s former home in Heaton, Newcastle. The unveiling took place on 25th September 2013.

EVER THE TYNESIDE POET! - MR ALAN C. BROWN IN THE BALLOON PUB, FENHAM, NEWCASTLE

                                With Doctor Keith Armstrong