MY PREVIOUS TWO VISITS TO ELLISTOWN'S FOOTBALL GROUND...

The Hot Air Balloon, the Sunset and the Owl

Maybe it was the hot-air balloon,

‘The incident’, which slowed my progress

Northwards, along the M42 motorway,

Which made my frustration digress…

Or maybe it was the burning, deep-red sunset,

So incongruent, low in the sky,

Behind the dull, persistent autumn rain-bursts,

Beneath which Ellistown’s stadium lay awry…

Yet maybe it was the hooting, invisible owl,

Quite impertinent and I turned my head,

Spying nought but evening dampness in shadows,

Around ancient pits, where coal’s labour lay dead…

Pete Ray

September 2011

Ellistown on a wet September evening. Gelding Miners’ Welfare drew 3-3…

The Slag Heap and the Pit Wheel

Its presence was perilous, 

A reminder of what used to be

Slag, darkly surreal;

Such a voluminous mound, beneath bristling grass,

Peering down at the obsolete pit wheel...

My presence was frivolous,

A trespasser on what is now

Landscape; no trace

Of a precious ground, beneath grafting mass,

Pouring sweat at the grimy coal face...

Pete Ray

February 2013

Watching football at Ellistown, once part of a large Leicestershire coalfield...