THE MOWDOG INTERVIEWS SHAMIR ALAM, THE MANAGER OF MFL DIVISION 2 NEWCOMERS, GNP SPORTS...

You have completed a fine first season. How do you feel about the success now, on reflection? 

"It’s gone now and a thing of the past. My players need to realise that this season teams will raise their games another 20% just for playing GNP. Everyone wants to beat us and perform well against us, so it’s important the players remember that and can perform under that pressure each week."

You have begun training, so how has that seemed so far?

"Nobody has been sick yet, so maybe I’m going soft or the players have come back fitter and stronger like I’ve asked them to. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter of the two though... We have had four, two-hour sessions in the past seven days, so the intensity has been really impressive but that notches up now as the countdown begins for our first pre-season 'friendly' game which is on Saturday 7th July." 

Can you talk me through any outgoings from the club over the summer? 

"Yeah, Leigh Phillips has joined Coventry Sphinx, Josh O'Grady, Scotty Hammond and Matty Compton have also departed but I will let them announce their own new clubs out of respect to them. That’s been due to a combination of not being able to offer regular starts and players looking for a new challenge but they all served a purpose and were great last season and I wish them all the best." 

Any signings you can announce and what will these guys bring to your club?

"Anyone on Twitter has seen we have been busy and we have 19 signed on now. I was keen to do my business really early as every minute of pre-season training is crucial to prepare us for 11th August. We have retained 90% of the squad and added some real quality but I don’t think it’s right to name anyone in particular. However, we have a stronger squad than last year and we will be ready for whatever Division 2 wants to try and throw at us..."

You had appointed a new coach, Danny Janes; what were your thoughts behind that? Danny then changed his mind, so how did you react to that shock?

"Danny and I speak each day and will remain close friends but his decision was purely down to travel and I wish him all the best at Studley. He is one of the best up and coming managers and I have no doubt that we will be working together in the future."

Which teams do you think will challenge GNP in League 2?

"I don’t think it’s our place to challenge anyone or anything, for Feckenham, Barnt Green Spartak, Hampton and Fairfield Villa have been in Division 2 for some years now. A few of the managers are probably feeling the pressure from their chairmen to finally get out of this league. 

For us, we will have a look at where we are at around Christmas time and go from there but don’t be surprised if the above four and maybe Northfield take the league by storm. They will be more physical and bigger than us, which might take us a few months to get used to.

Yours in football..."

Sham Alam, Manager, GNP Sports...

EARLSWOOD LAKES YESTERDAY...

ENGINE HOUSE...

MALLARD CHICK...

PIED WAGTAIL...

TUFTED DUCK...

GREAT CRESTED GREBES...

THREE MEN IN ALREWAS CHURCH: A NEW POEM...

Three Men In Alrewas Church…

Circus clown lips,

Sculpted ear to ear,

Reveal a cavernous, evil mouth.

Lustful eyes clamp their gaze upon human limbs

Around the font

And the salvation fails this grotesque aberration.

Pharaoh-like gape,

Chiselled ear to ear,

Reveals a death-mask’s deified features.

Peaceful eyes calmly gaze upon wooden screen 

Above the font

And the deceased fuels his statuesque emancipation.

Foliage-lined mouth,

Carved ear to ear,

Reveals a Green Man’s potent image.

Expectant eyes cast their gaze upon south aisle,

Beyond the font

And the mutant feels his unique degradation…

Pete Ray

  Alrewas church has three fine heads: one is ugly and almost bites the legs of visitors, for it is sculpted at the bottom of the font; one looks so like an Egyptian death-mask and sits high on an arch but the Green Man hides in darkness on the wooden ceiling…

ALREWAS CHURCH TOWER: A NEW POEM...

Alrewas Church Tower…

Wind tousled hair, wrapped around faces,

Starlings hidden from view;

Leaded roof ridges firm over Nave:

Grimy, stern expressions of gargoyles,

Irritated by the incessant rattle and whip

Of the flagpole, frowned down at blackened, weathered graves.

Wind closed eyes, grimaced my face,

Staircase spiralled from view;

Uneven steps beckoned through Tower:

Surly, stark repressions by monsters,

Irked by the human prattle and lip

Near the flagpole, growled down with besmirched, wicked glower… 

Pete Ray

Windy Alrewas, after climbing the tight, awkward spiral staircase to the top of the church’s tower. 

Gargoyles seemed unhappy at the intrusion…

ALREWAS CHURCH & THE GOUGED SLAB: A NEW POEM...

Alrewas Church

(Matthias Langley, Vicar of Alrewas from 1708-1728 wanted his stone memorial slab to be placed in the doorway of the church so that the congregation would walk over him, like they apparently had during his life… 

One door had scored the surface badly and I noticed that a small oak chest had marked the interior floor too… 

Matthias’ ghost perhaps, responding…)

Gouged Slab

Gouging an arc

On his memorial,

The door sliced

And defaced it,

Cutting the ground,

Defiling, spoiling

And marking it,

Then pulled itself back

With a sneer,

The weal a cleaved erosion…

Grabbing a corner

Of a darkened, oak chest,

The phantom heaved

And dragged it,

Scoring the ground,

Scraping, chafing,

And marking it,

Then pushed it back

With a leer,

To reveal a fractured abrasion…

Pete Ray

A NEW PLACE FOR FOOD & COFFEE...

NOW THIS IS WORTH CHECKING OUT IN ALREWAS, NEAR LICHFIELD...

WALL BARLEY ARROWS: A NEW POEM...

Wall Barley Arrows

Long grasses waved in clumps

On childhood field edges,

Even under hedges

And I would pull at their heads,

Feeling seeds loosen

Into my hand, then cast

Them like chaff,

Drifting on a breeze,

To settle upon paving stones and ledges…

But the bearded, green heads

Of wall barley fascinated,

On waste ground proliferated

And I would pull at the clumps,

Feeling spikelets loosen
Into my grip, then throw

Them like darts,

Arrowing into mum’s cardigan,

To stick in the wool but was soon berated…

Pete Ray

June 2018

Loved wall barley (didn’t know its name then) when I was a kid.

It is really HORDEUM MURINUM, which actually means ‘mouse barley’…

Always wanted that plant in the garden and my daughter bought me a similar one from near Hadrian’s Wall a couple of years ago. 

The new plant is HORDEUM JUBATUM (foxtail barley) but finally and to my shock, it appears that I now have one strand of wall barley in the garden too… 

Loved chucking them at mum’s cardigans or friends’ school pullovers…

Still do…

  

THE ARP WARDEN'S BICYCLE CLIPS: A NEW POEM...

(The poem below was written about a WW2 teaching session I used to offer at Birmingham Museum… 

I would be in role as a soldier who had returned home on leave and was talking about my imaginary father’s wartime ‘occupation’ as an air raid warden.

I would open his bag and discuss the contents with the children in my group.

To my surprise, a pair of rusting bicycle clips, used to keep the flapping bottoms of trousers clean and undamaged, proved to be quite a talking point and some of the guesses as to what the two clips had been used for were rather eye-opening…)

The ARP Warden’s Bicycle Clips…

Carefully removing them from the canvas bag,

The watching children were invited to suggest

What they were used for by an ARP warden

And one guess was for making an arrest…

The demonstration though was inconclusive,

The bicycle clips too easily came to grief,

So the arresting child went in one direction,

As I jogged off in another like a thief…

Perhaps they were bracelets, or headbands?

Accessories a warden wouldn’t necessarily choose,

Or maybe necklaces, indeed more like chokers

And anyway, of what was my father being accused?

Perhaps they were tweezers to pull out stray hairs,

Or a surgeon’s instrument to remove a bullet from a body,

Then pinch the skin together, ready for stitches,

Though in a somewhat crude manner and rather shoddy…

They were possibly used to pinch the nostrils though,

To protect a fellow from a gassing or a smoking;

Sprung neatly onto the end of the nose

To prevent raging coughing or choking…

Maybe they were earrings, someone thought

But on my father, the wartime volunteer?

Or perhaps linked they were a percussion instrument,

Like a triangle at an orchestra’s rear?

By far the most bizarre suggestion however

Came from a young lad with humour quite dry, 

Who thought they were powerful magnets

To pull German fighters out of the sky…

I was impressed by that impression and launched 

Into a German accent and an airman’s puzzled quips:

“Hans, there’s a boy down there in Aston, 

Trying to pull us out of the sky with bicycle clips…” 

Even with the clue of being something to do with bicycles,

The use of the clips usually passed pupils by:

Were they locks for your bike left outside a shop?

Or did you cycle and throw them into a German’s eye?

One girl though suddenly realised what they were,

“They are bicycle clips, I’ve got some at home!” she announced with a bellow;

“Why on earth didn’t you suggest that before?” I asked her,

“Well you see, mine at home are yellow…”

Pete Ray

June 2018

THE IDOL, THE SWITCH & THE WARDROBE: A NEW POEM...

The Idol, The Switch & The Wardrobe

SIMILAR STATUE...

Inside the master bedroom’s door it stood

Upon an old dressing table made from dull, brown wood:

Catholic imagery at its most lurid, a statue of Christ,

Measuring over two feet tall and suffice

To say that I was uneasy about my impending plight,

Having to sleep alone there within plain sight

Of this idol, this graven image, holding out its Sacred Heart,

For just a glimpse of it gave me quite a wary start…

Thus I requested its hasty removal from view

And it was hidden inside a wardrobe without further ado;

Then when finally I settled down and shut my eyes,

The silence broke to hasten my demise, 

Triggered by a curious squeaking

And a rather spooky creaking

Caused by the opening of a wardrobe door,

Prompting me to leap from bed onto the carpeted floor…

Exiting quickly onto the landing,

I could then clearly see Jesus standing

Looking my way and I shook in disbelief,

Until the offensive figure was removed, to my utter relief…

After the spirit of Christ had appeared from the gloom,

It was a miracle…

…that I slept at all in that darkened room… 

Pete Ray

June 2018

Completely true, early 1970s.

I had stayed at my future parents’ in law’s house while they were on holiday but that figure of Christ wasn’t the most calming ornament I had ever come across. 

It was placed inside the wardrobe out of sight and then one door creaked open in the darkness.

Jumping from the bed, I pulled open the door and from the faint landing light, I could see the figure, almost smirking at me.

I asked for it to be removed completely.

The house was on The Ridgway, Erdington, Birmingham and the view on the opposite side of the road from that bedroom window was rather apt: Witton Cemetery…