'Matching Man'

'Matching Man'
Paul Conneally
King Power Stadium
August 19 2017

Football Fans Inside The Black Horse Public House, Leicester, Boxing Day 2016

Leicester City football fans enjoy a pint and a chat in The Black Horse public house in Braunstone Gate before the match against Everton, Boxing Day 2016

Paul Conneally
December 26 2016

Mural of Buddhist monk celebrating Leicester City Football Club

One of a series of murals across Leicester that celebrate the success of Leicester City Football Club's winning of the English Premier League in 2016.

This shows just the central section of the mural which off The Newarke near De Montfort University which depicts symbols and images associated with Thailand where Leicester City's owners come from.

Paul Conneally
October 2016
Leicester

Before The Match

before the match
that sees Leicester City
crowned champions
of the Premier League
a group photograph

Little Onion

Photo: 'Smile' Paul Conneally King Power Stadium Leicester May 2016

Second Half Rush

Walking down Filbert Way these fans have a swagger about them not seen in Leicester before. Against all the odds their team, Leicester City, sit at the top of the English Premier League, the EPL, with only five matches to play. Wether they eventually win the Premiership or not they are already secured a place in the Champions League in the 2016/15 season something that seemed inconceivable  at the start of this season.

second half rush
too excited to eat
my half-time pie

Little Onion
April 2016

Photo:Leicester City Football Fans, Paul Conneally, King Power Stadium, April 17 2016

RE-TALE: October Rain

Around the outside of Leicester City's King Power Stadium are a number of fast food wagons.

They almost all serve exactly the same range of products, essentially burgers and hot dogs.

Many believe that the food on sale outside the ground from these wagons is superior to that inside and so they do a brisk trade.

Today I'm a little later to the ground than normal and all the 'Handmade Beefburgers' van can lure me in to do is take a photograph.

For the record, Leicester City beat Crystal Palace one nil and I had a Pukka Pie inside the ground.

October rain
a pied wagtail dips
along the touchline

Paul Conneally
October 24 2015

from Paul Conneally's ongoing series of works RE-TALE 

Rising Excitement - King Power Stadium

rising excitement
the turnstile assistant
gives me a wink

Paul Conneally
King Power Stadium
Leicester May 2015

The Visitors

The Visitors

It's early May. Leicester City FC are hosting south coast opponents Southampton, The Saints. Both clubs need a win. Southampton are hunting a place in the Europa Cup and Leicester fighting relegation from the Premier to the Championship League.

Many of the Southampton fans are in shorts, some coupled with flip-flops. Maybe it's living by the sea, it's surely not shorts weather today here in the English East Midlands.

They arrive in coaches, buy burgers and drinks from the vans outside the ground and then make their way into the visitors' end. The atmosphere is good.

season's end
police share nods and smiles
with away fans

Paul Conneally
King Power Stadium
Leicester, 9th May 2015

Roll-up

Roll-up - Paul Conneally, King Power Stadium, May 10 2015

Two young Leicester City football fans have a roll-up, a cigarette, before City's fixture against Southampton. The Foxes (Leicester City) came out 2 nil victors and a step nearer towards escaping relegation to the Championship from the Premier League.

when Saturday comes
a pint a pie
and a game of two halves

Paul Conneally
May 2015

Spring Fixture

spring fixture

a fan hands a policeman

an ice-cream

Paul Conneally

King Power Stadium

Leicester 2014

Half-Time Chatter

Before the match a burger and a programme are essentials.

Getting the burger and the programme mixed up would be a disaster.

A mouthful of the first eleven centrefold is unpalatable and no matter how strong your spectacles, making literary sense of a beef burger is nigh on impossible.

half-time chatter
a missed penalty
and a repeating gherkin

Paul Conneally
The King Power Stadium
Leicester April 2015

Programme Seller King Power Stadium

Programme Seller - King Power Stadium

When I was a boy a football programme was, except for special matches, just a few sheets of paper, now it's a 'Matchday Magazine'.

To give the publishers and writers of Leicester City's Matchday Magazine it is just that, really well put together and a good value read at just £3.

This said the fans never call it a magazine, it's always the 'programme' and maybe that's what it should be officially called too.

Paul Conneally
February 2015

Blue Moon

Parking the car just off King Richard's Road, my son and I walk the mile or so to Leicester City's King Power Stadium.

Today they play Manchester City, the current football champions of England.

It's a crisp December afternoon. The sun is out, the pavements are frosty, slippy in places, we expect to lose.

By Liberty Island, down by the canal, we stop and buy lamb burgers from the Barge Burger. Steam and smoke from the grill at the rear of the boat rising with the pre-match crowd's excited chatter as they walk on by towards the stadium over Walnut Bridge.

Just enough time for a bit of banter with the women who run this unique burger outlet.

As to the match, a good one even though we lost to the sky blue shirts of Manchester City by one goal to nil.

after the match
a pint of Tiger
to keep out the cold

Paul Conneally
13th December 2014
Leicester

Stride

'Stride'

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2014

A fan on the way to Leicester City versus Arsenal in the Premier League August 2014

Next Stop Brazil!

'Next Stop Brazil'

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2014

Tributes to Misery

Looking over the shreadlines pieces made during my first Poetry Machine workshop with and for Soft Touch Arts and Leicester Libraries I realise that at least two of them have become for me football poems, in fact World Cup poems. The above shreadlines cardboard box hanging was originally titled Box Clever but now it's renamed TRIBUTES TO MISERY.

TRIBUTES TO MISERY

Business killed away-day

Brick by brick house flooding

Assaults on youth clueless council

Cup half-empty tributes to misery

Box clever increase fertility

In collision nail biting rider charged with sex

Handling goods patient says: BRAZIL

Paul Conneally and the Poetry Machine Crew

New Parks Library, Leicester, June 2, 2014

Walking to the Match

walking to the match

the Statue of Liberty 

signs 'Uthe Foxes!'

Paul Conneally

Yes, Leicester has it's own Statue of Liberty. Football fans pass her every match day as they make their way to watch Leicester City play at the King Power Stadium. She used to be on top of a clothing manufacturing factory until it was demolished. The people of Leicester demanded that she be saved and erected as a piece of public art. And here she is and most certainly a Foxes supporter.

Running The Rails

Late at night 

to early morning 

the train station 

Rodents run rails 

men in lines of fours, fives  

and against the rules

alone

Wrapped tight 

against the November cold 

an oil faced worker 

Marching up the down line 

he counts out loud 

bending periodically 

to spray paint a sleeper

Oh can you hear

the blowing of the whistle?

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2013

Jesus on Jarrom Street

three pints happy 

we leave The Font 

on Gateway Street

head towards 

The Sir Robert Peel

and turn right

against red bricks

behind a black spiked fence

hangs Jesus 

stadium bound

fans genuflect and

ask for a win

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2013

The photograph is St Andrew's Church, Jarrom Street, Leicester. The church was designed by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott who also designed London's St Pancras Station.

The First Time

the first time
I left my son alone
seat G 110
the West Stand
Walkers Stadium
was a big moment
for both of us
a pukka pie and a coke

Paul Conneally

First published at Football Poets 2004

Photograph: ‘The Only Way Is… Pukka Pies’ Paul Conneally, Leicester, 2013