Wordsworth ponders an FA couplet
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Ok, so Willie Wordsworth did not quite come out with this yesterday, nor were there any daffodils blooming at the modest home of Hayes FC, but the club's manager had reason enough to feel poetic about tomorrow's FA Cup first round.
Mr Wordsworth boasts the unlikely distinction - in the unromantic world of football - of being a direct descendant of the 19th-century Romantic poet.
He is manager of Hayes, a part-time non-league football team playing in the Nationwide Conference South, five gaping rungs below the poetry in motion that is Thierry Henry.
A win over Wrexham tomorrow is likely to prompt all manner of punning headlines invoking the manager's distant relative, the former poet laureate best remembered for his evocation of the Lake District's floral splendour. But the verse is unlikely to come from Mr Wordsworth himself.
"I don't do poetry," said the 53-year-old as he prepared for a promotional visit by the FA Cup trophy yesterday. "My wife, Ange, writes some on Christmas cards and so on, as does my daughter, but the Wordsworth poetry genes have passed me by. I didn't even get English O-level. I'm a football man."
Mr Wordsworth is not sure of the exact nature of the lineage to his famous forebear. "My mother traced the family back and after she passed away my sister, Heather, who lives in Australia, kept it up."
Whatever its nature, the link has mixed benefits. "It was handy when I was in sales," said Mr Wordsworth. "People don't forget the name. The worse incident came in May when I visited my sister. I was stopped by police for talking on a mobile phone while driving - it's a big no-no in Australia. They asked me who I was. I was christened William so I said: 'William Wordsworth.' Unfortunately, I had no ID to prove it. He said: 'You'd better come along with me.' I spent eight hours in the cells before Heather turned up with my passport."
Mr Wordsworth coaches full-time, combining it with "commercial work and chasing kids off the pitch", but his players are a typical non-league collective: the goalkeeper is an accountant, there are builders, teachers and electricians. There are also the Warner brothers, Kevin and David. From Ambleside to Hollywood, via Hayes FC.
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