The latest issue of broadsheet, no.13, May 2014, features football poetry in honour of this year’s World Cup in Brazil.

The issue selected by broadsheet editor Mark Pirie comprises a selection of football poetry from 1890-2014, focusing mainly on New Zealand football but including English and word football and mostly by New Zealand poets. Former New Zealand All White Michael Groom has written the foreword.

Those included are: Simon Boyce, Gary Langford, Harry Ricketts, James Brown, John Gallas, John Dickson, Michael O’Leary, Kendrick Smithyman (d. 1995), Bill O’Reilly (1898-1959), Grant Sullivan, P.S. Cottier (Australia), Ben Egerton, David McGill, Harvey Molloy, Tim Jones, C.W. Grace (1862-1946), Albert Craig (d. 1909, UK), André Surridge, Dylan Groom and editor Pirie himself.

The New Zealand artist and writer Dr Michael O’Leary has drawn George Best for the cover. London memoirist, poet and renowned translator Anthony Rudolf has contributed an essay on English football autographs of the 1950s.

The issue will be launched in Wellington during the World Cup and is sure to please general football fans as well as those with a more literary and historical football interest.

http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com/current-issue/