AFTER nearly 60 years as a football fan I’ve finally got to have my cake and eat it. I’m still as proud as punch of my big local club Brighton’s fan-backed 20-year rise from bottom of the 4th Division with no ground to the Premier League.

Now I’m helping my little local club too. I’ve done all the relevant online research, and to the best of my knowledge can now confirm that I am the first poet in history to sponsor a football shirt.
 
AFC Southwick, the new club in my Sussex port-town home where my maternal family roots go back 200 years, will play with my logo on their shirt for the next two seasons. Once one of the top non-league sides in Sussex with an FA Cup first round appearance and a spell in the Isthmian League under its belt, Southwick FC, founded in 1882, has been rescued from oblivion under a new name by dedicated local people.

And after a 100 per cent record promotion season – to the top tier of the Mid-Sussex Football League – in our first year the club is now one step away from a return to its rightful place in senior football. Everyone involved is absolutely lovely and I am proud to be a part of it – though juggling gigs, Brighton games and now AFC Southwick games is no mean feat.
 
If you like the shirt, there are replicas available and all profits will be going to the club. Please go to my merch page at attilathestockbroker.bandcamp.com for all the details.

We are ground-sharing at Whitehawk FC in Brighton – home of the legendary anti-fascist, pro-alcohol Hawks Ultras – while our derelict home ground Old Barn Way is being rebuilt.

The first game there kicks off at 2pm on Saturday September 4, which happens to be Non League Day since there are no Premier League games. Admission is free with collection, great beer and food in the Hawks’ clubhouse, souvenir programme – all welcome. And we have a new Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AFCSouthwick
 
More stuff hot off the press. Swill Odgers of The Men They Couldn’t Hang has a new album just out, and it’s an absolute corker. All those who love the band are still reeling from the news of the death of Swill’s co-singer Stefan Cush, but they’ve pledged to continue and Ghosts of Rock ’n’ Roll is a barnstormer of a solo album, harder-edged than Swill’s earlier material and packed with great songs.
 
Outstanding for me is The Brooklyn Bridge, a collaboration with Joe Solo and a poignant tale of a man with dementia which will resonate with anyone who has encountered this terrible disease.

Last Thing On My Mind Is Regret is a beautiful frame for Swill’s resonant and expressive voice, and there’s a great cover of Phil Ochs’s Flower Lady, a song I’d never heard before. All in all a brilliant album – available from all good record shops and online stores.
 
And Bev Warner, aka Cherry B, has just had her first book of poems, Job Lot of Rhymes, published by Flapjack Press. I say “first” – it is, but it contains nearly three decades’ worth of material. Warner’s from Harlow, the Essex newtown where I spent my ’80s formative poetic years, and she is a fount of no-nonsense newtown-nurtured knowledge.
 
It’s a wonderful collection but two poems deserve a special mention: The Family Group is a tribute to the statue by Henry Moore which stands in Harlow town centre and expresses in metallic form the hopes and dreams of all those families who, like Bev’s, became the original newtown pioneers, moving from cramped London to the greener fields of Essex in search of a better life. And Charlie, a poem to her stillborn son, is beautiful, overwhelming and heartbreaking.  
Thirty years of well-lived life and rhymes in a single book: well done Bev. Available from flapjackpress.co.uk
 
Gigs start again at the end of the month – Watchet Festival in Somerset on Saturday August 28, the welcoming Bell Inn, Bath the following lunchtime and then a full programme through September. All details at facebook.com/attilathestockbroker. Cheers everybody.