The fog clears, and here we are.

It’s Year 10 English and we are just about managing an autopsy of Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s Limbo. It’s a dramatic poem with plenty of rhythm. I’m getting well into it as Brett and Troy watch me. It’s clear they are doing a spot of cosmetic listening - that sort of listening you do when you are not actually listening but you look like you are. Like at a parents’ evening. Or when the bus driver is lodging a complaint. Or when your three-year-old is giving a full account of passenger coach Clarabel’s backstory in TV’s Thomas The Tank Engine. That sort of listening. And I recognise it a mile off. There’s gonna be no English GCSEs with cosmetic listening.

“Okay, Troy and Brett,” I command, snapping them back to reality. “Have you any views on how the poem is laid out on the page?”

Brett, a 14-year-old who has achieved mastery at looking not right bothered, replies quickly and confidently:

“No, Sir.”

These lads exasperate me on a regular basis. It’s like they were put on this planet to do this. Thing is, I really like them. I can feel the rising frustration from the pit of my stomach. It may well explode from my mouth like that green pea snozz in The Exorcist. A gob-full of anti-happiness.

Swallowing, I manage to temper it, and go down the well-trod road of teacher-scripted cajoling-for-learning.

“Have you views on anything?” I venture.

Very quickly, Troy sits up and the rest of the class, including me, become passengers in his brief monologue.

“Yes Sir! Football, Sir. I’ve got a view on that. Barnsley Football Club are going up! Premier League for us, Sir! And it’s been a long time coming! Ninety-nine years, Sir. Ninety-Nine years!”

He then starts singing a song entitled Danny Wilson. Troy is singing. I have never seen Troy so animated. I notice straight away that the class are all joining in now with amiable cheers and I get the real sense that Limbo will have to wait.

I cannot explain or justify what happened next. This little Travelling Teacher tale has become a confession of sorts. You see, the bile of possession I have successfully kept at bay suddenly transforms from something pestilent and awful, to something beautiful, fresh and unique:

A useful lie.

Perhaps to call it a lie is too strong a word. It’s an attempt at wavelength. It the specific teacher act of attempting to stand with the class as well as in front of them - to get in their zone. Their world. The world of manager Danny Wilson and his 1997 team, Barnsley Football Club and their long-yearned for success.

These kids LOVE Barnsley Football Club. I want these kids to LOVE poetry. Where is the bridge between the two? Well, I go some way to finding it when these words pour from my mouth:

“I AM TOBY TYKE”

The class fall silent.

You could hear a pin drop if someone dropped one. If someone dropped one, you’d hear it.

I now look around the room, from kid to kid, my eyes falling finally on Brett and Troy, and I repeat my claim.

“I AM TOBY TYKE”

(To save you an Internet search, Toby Tyke is Barnsley Football Club’s chief mascot - an adult in a dog suit wearing a football kit)

Troy shakes his head while grabbing Brett’s arm in disbelief.

“Really Sir? Are you? Are you him?”

I hold my nerve. Then, as if to punctuate the claim, I raise my arms from my side copying that gesture that Russell Crowe did in Gladiator. It’s like I’m saying, “You better believe it sunshine!”

The silence is broken by Brett saying the slightly dated (even now) expression: “Shabba”, which, if memory serves me right, is a good thing.

The whole class start asking me questions including:

• Can you drive when wearing the suit?
• Do you own the suit?
• Do you sometimes wear it at home?
• Is it hot?

And for the rest of their time at the school, my GCSE class believed I was Toby Tyke, Barnsley Football Club’s wonderful mascot.

Occasionally the kids would tell me they had shouted to me from the stands but I hadn’t responded. I always blamed the claustrophobia-inducing dog’s head, low visibility and its inner lining.

And the fog descends.

For some, football is poetry.

Hywel Roberts is a travelling teacher and curriculum imaginer. He tweets as @hywel_roberts. Read his back catalogue

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