Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

I have even mixed football with poetry readings, and I recall one event when I read a poem about goalies to a solemn, intellectually focused audience and they wrinkled their brows, unable to grasp the textual references – to such luminaries of the keeper’s art as ‘Piggy’ Lawrence of Liverpool and Joe Corrigan of Manchester City. However, when the topic of football and failure is raised, a Leeds fan has to grudgingly speak the name of Gary Sprake. He was not a failure: in fact he was magnificent, and a joy to watch, but he suffered from the evil of the football fan’s propensity to snigger at one mistake and forget all the skill.

Gary suffered from this because what circulates about him in footy talk is largely the disgusting emphasis on ‘Careless Hands’ – stemming from the infamous game at Anfield in 1967 when he had the ball in his grasp and was preparing to chuck the ball out to Terry Cooper when he saw Callaghan, a Liverpool player, too close for the throw to be made. In that second of indecision, the ball sprang from his hand and trickled into his net. The sick and twisted Liverpool tannoy man played the song Careless Hands at half-time. My short poem, recited at readings, set out to put the record straight:

Never blame Gary, caught in two minds by the net;
It’s the tannoy man who should carry the can.
I hope that Scouser’s pee’d his best trousers
And his crotch is eternally wet.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Tags

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• Anfield (1) W/G ·
• Association football (6) W/G ·
• Born 1944) (1) W/G ·
• Careless Hands (1) W/G ·
• Des O’Connor (1) W/G ·
• English Football League (2) W/G ·
• Gary Sprake (1) W/G ·
• Goalkeeper (association football) (1) W/G ·
• Ian Callaghan (1) W/G ·
• Joe Corrigan (1) W/G ·
• Leeds United F.C. (2) W/G ·
• 📌Leeds (248) W/G ·
• Liverpool F.C. (1) W/G ·
• Liverpool (9) W/G ·
• Manchester City F.C. (1) W/G ·
• Own goal (1) W/G ·
• Poetry (75) W/G ·
• Public address system (1) W/G ·
• Schadenfreude (1) W/G ·
• Snow (18) W/G ·
• Tannoy (1) W/G ·
• Terry Cooper (footballer (1) W/G ·
• Tommy Lawrence (1) W/G ·

All tags.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Similar

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22 February 1865: Rioters besiege the Park Square, Leeds, home of surgeon and magistrate Henry Chorley, on the release from Armley Gaol of his dripping-thief cook Eliza Stafford

11 July 1787: Advertisement for The Commercial and Mathematical Academy, Hull

21 May 1785: Aged 15, William Butterworth of Leeds runs away to sea and joins a slaver

30 July 1820: Primitive Methodists try to disrupt the traditional Maudlin Fair football match between Hedon and Preston (Holderness)

30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds

3 August 1846: Aged one month, Frances Jane Campbell becomes the latest Leeds victim of the opiate epidemic

25 September 1880: Thomas Harper reveals to the Leeds Mercury’s young readers a mnemonic song of monarchs (except Oliver) used in the village school at Weldrake (York) in the 1770s

15 December 1888: Leeds’s most popular wassailing song, according to Frank Kidson

17 January 1832: A waning Paganini plays for a grateful but declining public at Leeds Music Hall

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Margaret Drinkall misdates this to January 12th (Drinkall 2013). I think the mayor was William Hey II rather than Thomas Tennant. The typo Pietro l’EremitO may be meaningful or not. Which building was this music hall? Here’s Paganini’s Hope told a flattering tale / Nel cor più non mi sento:

I’m not sure I’ve correctly identified the other.

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