Mark Wilberforce

Now, a poet might spend days searching for the right words.

But a commentator has only seconds.

So how much do you have to practice or do your homework on players and statistics to get up to speed?

Naturally.

You're listening to the documentary In The Studio from the BBC World Service.

I'm Mark Wilberforce and today we're exploring football and language.

Upper 90.

And the upper 90 that you just referred to means the corner of the goal where it meets the crossbar, just for our audience that are not aware.

So it seems like we might be divided by a common language across the Atlantic after all.

Back in Barnsley, we left Ian to ponder his poem.

Football has rules and it has boundaries, yet every match is unpredictable because people are unpredictable.

So is poetry similar?

And do the rules somehow create freedom?

Looking at poetry a little bit more closer, I mean, it's steeped in rhythmic rules, but does it necessarily have to rhyme?

When you mention those rhyming structures, what comes to mind is the poem that you did for former Barnsley striker, Kayode Odeji.

Do you recall those factors that you just mentioned in relation to the poem that you wrote for him?

Reading some of your other poems, the rhythm structure really does remind me of hip-hop cadences and even the great sporting poet Muhammad Ali in terms of flow and even your rhyming structure.

To me, it's more or less about performance and painting a picture with words.

What's your take on that?

The goalkeeper in sunlight reminded me of a conversation that I had with Ian McMillan when he's working on a poem, which is called The World Cup is a Shining Poem.