101 SPORT SHORTS

These are in the form of haikus, but they don't meet the thematic demands of a haiku, so I've called them sport shorts. They're short, they're all about sport.

MICK PRICE SITTING

I am famous for

Five minutes twenty seconds

Of sitting in awe.
PETER NORMAN BLUES

Barely a whisper

Peter Norman sang his blues

Lost his silver life.

CHIN MUZAK

He bowled a half-tracker.

Fuck! He screamed. It went for six. 
Fuck off! He then screamed.

FAME

Fame is for the few

Whatever Andy Warhol
Said to Sonny Lwho?

RICHARD GASQUET TAKES TIME TO EVALUATE HIS PECULIAR LIFE

Another fourth round;

They said I’d be the greatest;

Another third round.

BREXIT WAS ALWAYS INEVITABLE

The nation which named

its Sports Personality

Nigel Mansell. Twice.

TOTO ON TOTO IN TOTO

Signori scored more

Goals than me for Italy.
I’d rather be me.

THE FINISHER

The quicksand rises.

I hold my form like a train -

A trick, a triumph.

THE UP AND DOWN ASHES CAREER OF MITCHELL JOHNSON

I bowled to the left.

I stored my rage for next time.
I bowled to the right.

DIFFERENT RULES

I flew beyond time

So they took away the clock.

I changed the cheats’ rules.

J4JNot4EVA

The fists flew for fun

From the cold shoulder roller.

The gun stopped the fun.

SHOVE

Even when he died

That tragicomic stumble

The only image.

BOD

This longed-for greyhound

Became a much-loved wolfhound,

Fearsome and faultless.

THEY MAINLY LIED

I attempted to

display normal behaviour

While they mainly lied.

THE SKATER’S HUSBAND

Even me, swept up by

The romance of the moment,

I thought I lost you.

THE CASUAL BETRAYAL

I can’t remember

One sentence he said to me

save "You’re dead to me".

WHISTLEBLOWERS

A man fired the gun.

We went fast, not fast enough.

I blew the whistle.

CHAMINDA VAAS STARTS

Chaminda Vaas starts

Warnakulasuriya

Patabendige …

THE BEST NEVER TO …

In practice, I make

9 out of 10 ten-footers,

But not in practice.

CK7

Did I lose my arm

When I sank down to my knee

Against your order?

ARMBANDS

Team-mates no longer,

Never the closest of friends,

United in exile.

THE BRITISH SWIMMER FINGERTIPS FROM GREATNESS OVER AND OVER AGAIN

49.8

& then 49.9

But never 50

HOLLYWOOD MIDLIFE

Artemis never

Had to put up with this shit.

My aim is true-ish.

PSYCH

Me, with ‘All My Friends’.

You, with ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

We fight. And you win.

DERBY DAY

Herbert Jones - jockey,

Horse – Anmer, King – George the Fifth,

She – most remembered.

DO RIGHT BADDELEY

History & science

Will combine to correct them –

I thought & fought hard.

FATE IN SPORT IS A VISIBLE AND REAL ENTITY

Fate dictates sport’s lives

Despite its non-existence

any other place.

ANDY LLOYD’S UNIQUE, SAD TEST CAREER

Wiped out by blackwash

Uniquely undefeated

I bat on and on.

DISGUSTING AND DISGRACEFUL

No self-righteousness

Nears the self-righteousness of

Football journalists.

RUN, DON’T RUN

Questions never stop;

Shame and doubt is yours, not mine,

I’m floating past you.

THE EASIEST MONEY EVER MADE

Act like a dickhead,

Pet then batter a novice.

Easiest, Money.

THE SLOW ROAR

Every four years

Famous for fifteen days of

Prolonged hypnosis.

THE ONE TOWN CHORUS

Singing at sport is

Rarely a thing of beauty

But, ah, when it is ...

OLYMPIAN

Prodigious talent -

downhill all the way from there.

That’s – and I’m – the joke.

MIDORI ITO

Triple then triple

I spin, land into history

And, oh, out again.

BACK 

Back at the track

Overhauling all wide-eyed ghosts

Outracing myself.
EL TERMINATOR

He was a killer.

He’d have killed inside the ring

In a different life.

PRE-CRIME

Crown stolen that night,

I saw the glint of madness

In the poster boy.

CHUCKY THE CHEERLEADER

I’ll grant you this, prick.

You were funny for a day

In twenty-twelve, prick.

YUP. THE VAN DE VELDE ONE. YUP. I WON THAT.

E.S.B & me

Have our place in victory

Though not history.

WINNER’S WAY

I’ve changed my mind once

Since Nineteen Ninety Seven

And that went badly.
THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE

A one-punch knockout

Blurs and spins and sets clocks back;

Time bursts from the floor.

OOH BEBE BEBE, BEBE BEBE

I am living proof

Of infallibility’s

Fallibility.

SPORT’S MAN SHIP

No greater sportsman

Was a total fucking liar,

Sly cheat and scumbag.

PARTNERS

We invent angles

Locked in our collaboration,

Our table-top dance.

DJAMOLODINE ABDOUJAPAROV 1

The name flails wildly,

Flying, next moment, crashing,

Battered, mythical.

DJAMOLODINE ABDOUJAPAROV 2

Oh, Djamolodine

Abdoujaparov, the name,

The myth, the terror.

THE LINE

Invisible tape

Drives my core to a crushed c.

I break in triumph.

TREVOR PENNEY: SPECIALIST FIELDER

‘Specialist fielder’

They say, like I’m a schoolboy –

I averaged 40.

THE HAUNTING NOISE AS I’M PADDING NERVOUSLY IN THE PUB GARDEN, UNABLE TO WATCH, IN EXTRA TIME, AS ENGLAND PLAY GERMANY AND GASCOIGNE STRETCHES

The roar that surged up

Was 9/10ths of a goal’s roar

That late June evening.

A FOOL’S GOLD

I have to explain

My glory was not actually

A demonstration.

COME THE FUCK ON, TIM

It rained that weekend

When I was primed for glory –

Another’s story.

NO MERCY

Victory closes in

From furthest, deepest, darkest

And I am resigned.

OH, DANNY, BOY

Everyone tells you

they felt proud to be British

For just a fortnight.

THE LOW LO LO

It’s not so easy

To carry the whole package.

I became a joke.

YOU’VE NEVER HAD MY NUMBERS

He never was thick

Or fat, unfit or lazy.

He’ll speak himself now.

WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT

What she thinks about

When she runs ten metres is

The next ten metres.

SPECTATORS SPORTS

Some love the danger,

the speed, the story. Not me.

I love the numbers.

GILES CLARKE’S TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT

We took the money,

Turned ten million people

Away from the game.

YOU SMASHED IT

All sources suggest

He was the first to smash it

Right out of the park.
WORLD CLASS

He was class, pure class.

One hundred per cent pure class.

But was he world class?

LEGEND

It’s an overused term,

But to me he’s a legend,

Absolute legend.

FOREVER SEREVI

A twitching phantom

Wrote a new set of rules for

The smaller man’s game.

THE SURPRISINGLY POETIC FAILURE OF STEVE BACKLEY

He could see the lights

Of the stadium but the

Music wouldn’t play.

HOW THE FATE OF A NATION FELL ON DARIUS VASSELL

He’s a quiz question

Kicking far above his weight

In a misser’s list.

MARK WAUGH, FOR EXAMPLE, SHOULD NOT BE TALKED ABOUT AS A GREAT BATSMAN

Any punter can be

The world’s number one batsman

With one perfect shot.

SPEED TRIALS

Semi-finalists

Wondering if they’re the fastest

Man who’s not doping.

HEROL’S PERIL

Julian Jackson

Was almost totally done

Til the last second.

ART

Despite your claiming

This is art, not proper sport,

Look! A gold medal.

THE CULT OF JAMES RICHARDSON

Before it was clear

How his time was already gone

I stood in, and starred.

MEDALS

We, ex machina,

Meddle, dictate the heroes

And their sporting fate.

WENT TO SEE SURREY-HAMPSHIRE FOR A FEW HOURS IN 2007 TO SEE SHANE WARNE BOWL BEFORE HE RETIRED

Went to the Oval.

Shane Warne removed his jumper.

The fucking rain came.

C'S PAINFUL WANING

The gaps close faster.

I don’t bounce, don’t fly these days.

The road gets harder.  
COLLISION COURSE

Our game, stripped of grace,

Loaded, electric, brutal

Defines the country.

ELISIAN FIELDS
The field of failure,
The balance of sympathy,
The unbearable.

MEET JAMES MILNER
I am James Milner.
I’ve played quite effectively
For several teams.

MIGHTY APHRODITE
You’ll always see me
Second nearest to the sun,
like John the Baptist.

THE END OF THE STARTER

Thirty-nine horses

Had no warm wishes for his

Coming retirement.

A BOXER CALLED JOHN OR COUNTLESS OTHERS

31-8-2

I lost five fights on split deci-

-sion. All in the game.

THE ARTLESS DARTIST

Stick your job, I said,

Brash with a youthful near-miss –

As close as I came.

MAKING SAVES

Deemed heroic,

forced by good will to recall

a nightmare living.
HE AIN’T HEAVY

Brotherly love

Reached apotheosis with

“Fucking hell, you twat”.

SPIN

My future is bright,

In spite of and because of.

The future is white.

CRAZY LARRY

Crazy BSc

I abide then elevate

This loathsome culture.

THE NEW POWER

Everything you fear,

The nightmare that guards your dreams.

Tell me of your dreams.

AMERICAN DOUBLES

The junior partner

Who never feels bitter is

Seldom supplanted.

THE SHOWBOATER

Failure is a trick

I studied but never solved.

I call it success.
SHARKS IN THE OPEN WATER

This sport has a lot

Of thinking a rival is

Trying to drown you.

DISCIPLINE

Five shows no weakness,

Seven is a stretch too far.

Wrong age, wrong season.

RED CORNER

In the red corner

Eyes long closed were forced to see

Everything slow down.

THE MID-RANKING AMERICAN GOLFER WHO HAD ONE GOOD WEEKEND AT A LUCRATIVE BUT HARDLY NOTEWORTHY TOURNAMENT

He made his fortune

Winning a minor event

No one can recall.

HISTORY

“The best since Jessop”

The fifty-seven year old

Fucking idiot said.
THE LAST GREAT AMATEUR

Matinee idol

But the real money was made

By the evening cast.
SIR DAVE

Now marginally less

Credible than Lance Armstrong,

But the gains, the gains …

COLD WARRIOR

Forever forward,

Faster than the floor they found 

Can swallow me up.

EDDIE KIRKLAND’S BET

For the second half

Of a friendly versus Greece

The drinks were on me.

ANYONE BUT

A point of pride that

Some of them still despise me –

Smile!! I’m nearly done.

THE PAUL WARHURST PHENOMENON

One month, Gerd Muller

Possessed a solid player.

The next month, he left.

THE SLOW DECLINE

I loved the game so.

It mainly saddens me now.

Mainly, not always.

A WINNING STREAK IS ONE THING BUT …

She managed to win

Four seventy matches

Without going mad.

VICTORY

In that one moment

I remembered all my sins.

And they forgot them.