i.m. Paul Shrubb

Over the past few months, I've been working on a sequence of poems titled Starting Eleven. It revolves around Aldershot F.C. footballers of the 1980s and around what it meant to be a fan of a Division Four team at that time.

One of the players to feature is Paul Shrubb, who passed away this last week from Motor Neurone Disease. As a consequence, I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime today to post an unpublished poem here in his memory...

2 Paul Shrubb

Neat, precise and unassuming

in his haircut, passes and gait,

he times his tackles perfectly,

patrolling our flank as he's done

for years. If the fans cherish him,

it's because we can picture him

in a warehouse, office or shop

on a Monday soon, one of us.