The Footygods: the Fates

  The Fates spun and cut the thread of your life. Clotho would spin the thread upon her spindle. Lachesis would measure it out and Atropos would cut it and you were gone. It didn’t matter how good you were for the vast bulk of your days on earth; if you came to the end [Read more]

The Footygods: the Trojan wars

The Trojans were unbeatable at home. They had a walled city by the water. They were able to defend easily and they could sweep out of their city to attack their enemy. They could always replenish their wounded soldiers. After a few years, the invading armies started thinking that they couldn’t win. The Trojan wars [Read more]

The Footygods: Elpis

The greeks were funny about hope. Some of them thought that there wasn’t much point having hope because the gods would do you in anyway. Some thought that hope only existed to make your suffering even worse. But they did give hope a minor goddess; Elpis; a young woman who held flowers in her hands. [Read more]

The Footygods: The Titans and the Giants

  by Ian Latham You can always tell Zeus. He’s the middle aged greek bloke either standing up looking serious with his thunder bolts or sitting down looking serious. You didn’t want to get in his way. Well, tell that to the Titans. They thought that they just owned the place, which was true. They [Read more]

The footy gods: Tyche

Tyche was the daughter of Zeus. She would spin a ball in her fingers to explain luck. The ball might bounce one way and you could win the game. Bounce the other way and you were gone. And all that planning and all that effort comes to nothing.

The Footygods: Sisyphus

Sisyphus came from a famous family although he didn’t like some of them all that much. He had a brother called Salmoneus who he spent much of his time trying to kill. It seems that he liked killing people generally. People would stay at his place and he would kill them too. It didn’t go [Read more]

The Footygods: Heracles

Heracles was strong, skilled and courageous. He shaved his head. But he had a temper and a woman sent him mad until he did some terrible, terrible things. The gods sent him away to see if he could save himself and he did. He killed the man eating birds and did all that had been [Read more]

The footy gods: Hubris

By Ian Latham   The ancient Greeks knew one thing. Do not pretend to be one of  the footy gods. They called that hubris. And if you were found to be hubristic, well, that meant trouble; with a capital T. Nemesis would fly down to find you. She  would spin her wheel of fortune and [Read more]

The Footy Gods: an introduction

  by Ian Latham In millennia past, the Greeks believed that the gods could determine our future. At times they would act with justice. At times, they would punish you just to prove that they could. But there was little that humans could do to influence them. To make matters worse, they sometimes took human [Read more]

My friend Neil

Almost every weekday, Neil would put on his white cotton shirt with french cuffs; his golden cufflinks; his silken tie; his pure woolen suit. On many of those days he would change again and wear his starched white collar, his black woollen gown; his horsehair wig. So dressed, he would breathe deeply and begin his [Read more]