When Paul was at school, he would have rather been a footballer than anything else – especially if it meant playing for Everton! A second choice would have been to play rock and roll guitar for a band like Slade. Instead, he wrote poems and became a poet.

Since 1989 he has worked as poet, performing thousands of shows at thousands of schools and publishing over forty collections of children’s poetry including the brand new I’d Rather Be A Footballer, The Works, Pants On Fire and Give Us A Goal.

His performances are always fun, exciting, loud ( and sometimes cheeky). Audience participation is non negotiable and beware – he has a ukulele and he’s prepared to use it!

He is now the Poet In Residence at the National Football Museum and Poet Laureate for Slade and his work has appeared regularly on national radio and television. His poems have appeared on Match of The Day, Radio 5 Live, Radio 2, Talk Sport Radio and in the Everton Match Day Programme

Paul lives in Retford with Sally, Sam and Daisy – and Max the dog.

If he has any spare time he likes to play five a side football, read too many books, buy too many CDs, watch Everton play and practise his ukulele (but not at the same time!).