John Hegley on Luton Town (and the Fringe)

There's so much to talk to John Hegley about, like the time in 1983 when his band The Popticians busked their way onto the John Peel Show. Did he really once gig with Kylie Minogue? What was it like being the writer-in-residence at Keats' House? 

And there's more we could ask. His French ancestry might be an interesting line to pursue. That's not to mention his poems; how he sees a world in a potato or writes from the point of view of a guillemot. Then there's what we're meant to discuss: his two shows at the Fringe will characteristically have something for everyone, whether it's the children's show Morning Wordship at Pleasance, or New and Selected at Assembly George Square. 

But opportunities to chat to another Luton Town Football Club fan can be exceedingly rare. And neither of us are going to miss it. Hegley breaks into verse: 

"Five whole goals to Luton Town
and Middlesbrough not one,
but though their team was five-nil down
their fans were up for fun
and when their consolation came
before the whistle blew
they echoed Luton's 'we want six'
with a modest 'we want two'."

For most people, Luton's Kenilworth Road ground is one of the worst stadiums in the Football League. "To me, it's a delightful place," says Hegley. "I remember trying to get autographs from the reserves in 1967... The first time I went we had rattles and we were in the Bobbers Stand... My main memory is 1967/8, when we won the fourth division championship. Tediously, I can still name that team. [My brother] Marcel buys me books about Luton and I'm always reading old match reports."

He adds: "I missed the glory years," referring to Luton's 1980s peak, which included a top-seven finish in what is now the Premier League, and winning the League Cup against Arsenal in 1988. This was partly due to his family moving to Bristol, but also because Hegley's glory years started too. In 1983 – the same year of David Pleat's famous jig, which celebrated Raddy Antić's relegation saving goal at Manchester City – Hegley and The Popticians came to the Fringe for the first time. 

"The first year I came it was at The Hole in the Ground, which is where the Traverse Theatre now is. There were lots of little tents around; it was like a mini-festival. I don't think I did any poems in that first year, it was just music, and we did an hour in that tent. We didn't know anything about Edinburgh then. I think it was the first ever year of the Book Festival. We busked as people were setting it up in Charlotte Square. So I think we were the book fair's first ever act!"

Then, in the same year that Luton narrowly missed retaining the League Cup, losing 2-1 to Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest, Hegley was pipped to the Perrier Award by Simon Fanshawe. "1989 was a lovely year. It was the first time I'd been in a posh venue [The Assembly Rooms]. It was a brilliant room, that black box. It's where I always wanted to be really, a black box theatre. It was my first time having an hour to myself, and not knowing if I could do it."

Since then, his and Luton's fates diverged, with Hegley rising to become one of the UK's most popular poets and Luton sliding through the tables – even spending some years in the non-league wilderness. But the Hatters are back on form, having just secured promotion from the fourth tier, just as they did exactly fifty years earlier. "I feel I'm back to where I started," says Hegley. 

John Hegley: Morning Wordship, Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), 4-19 Aug (not 6-8 or 13-15), 10.30am, £8-10
John Hegley: New and Selected, Assembly George Square Studios (Two), 4-26 Aug (not 13), 4.20pm, £11-13