Online poetry competition

Thank you to all those readers who entered our online poetry competition last week. There were lots of novel, witty and entertaining entries on the ostensibly mundane subject of ‘games’. The winner is ‘hc18’, who should contact dblackburn @ spectator.co.uk to claim their bottle of champagne. Here is the winning entry:

‘The sweat, the fear, the aching limbs,
the scowling face of Mr. Symms.
The pain, the tears, the shrieks and howls.
the muck, the grime, those sweaty towels.
Running round the pitch in rain.
“You’ve done it once, get to it again!”
Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry,
Mud on your face and grit in your eye…

How I miss those days back then,
before I’d picked up this bloody pen!’

Great fun was had by all, so we’re going to make this a regular feature. The theme for the next readers’ poetry competition is ‘dirt’. Entries should be short and placed in the comments section below.