As a rugby league fan, there are many tales I relish of the great game,
but none are as remarkable as that of the little lad who ignored the critics to fulfil his lifelong dream.

In a northern city not too long ago, Malachi Middlemound,
all five-foot two of him, harboured a secret ambition – to play rugby for his hometown.
But notorious braggart, ‘Bruiser’ Bill Billycan, would laugh, saying ‘What, you?’

So he would escape from the world with his pet pigeon Sally,
hoping like her, he too could fly away from life’s woes.

Instead, he read tales of adventure by H Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling,
hiding in the long grass, imagining he was a big game hunter,
stalking a tiger or fighting that mighty warrior nation, the Zulu.

The shy boy would wave at rugby star, Barrie McDomittas, one of his sporting heroes,
whom the matchday presenter would introduce as, ‘He’s big and he’s bad’.

Then one day ‘Big Baz’ told him, ‘Get down to the Lock Lane club
and play the toughest sport of all, young fellah me lad.’

Inspired, he was soon running around with an oval ball, dreaming of streaking up the pitch,
like a leopard on the African Savannah.

But one day his friend Septimus found him looking forlorn,
so asked, ‘What’s the matter, old fruit? Why are you looking so sad?’
(He liked to adopt an aristocratic voice, being a great fan of that
famed English humourist, PG Wodehouse).

‘Lost your pocket money, or is Suzie Sillymot still rejecting your advances?
Cheer up, you’re too young to be in love.’

But Malachi looked up in tears, ‘No, none of the above. 
My PE teacher says I’m too small to play rugby.’

‘Come to the prayer meeting,’ his Methodist pal advised,
‘and you will find meaning in all this.’

Once there he was filled with the spirit of evangelism, as Bible in hand,
he extolled the virtues of sobriety, but felt like a fool when he
condemned his beer-drinking flock, for he knew that his dad,
according to the landlord of the Flying Ferret, could ‘Drink it out of a sweaty sock’.

Then fate struck again when he met an ailing Doddie Weir.
Struck down by motor neurone disease, he’d towered above the
opposition as the tallest rugby union player, leaping like a salmon to catch a line-out throw.

The legendary Scotsman said, ‘You’re not too small – take my fellow sufferer,
nicknamed The Pocket Rocket, Leeds’ lad Rob Burrow.

‘He’s so small you could put him in your pocket,’ he said with a laugh,
Did you know BBC commentator Bill McLaren, called me ‘The Galloping Giraffe?

'Anyway, where was I? Oh yes... believe me, it’s not all about size.

‘Oh, Rob’s such a character, we could have had a double act,
just like Morecambe And Wise, with me poking fun at Rob’s lack of height.

'But my God he could shift, like a starling in flight, lighting up a stadium with his darting runs,
just like I did when I became a British and Irish Lion. 
We played hard and had fun, and behaved like fools.
Not like today’s lot, with their no-beer rules and training-schedule pie charts.’

The little chap face brightened at these words from a player beloved by all,
even those men in suits at Twickenham, christened by Will Carling as ‘Old farts’.

Not too long after that Bill Billycan, who’d once mocked a boy’s sporting desire,
was watching Leeds take on Castleford at his local, The Silvery Swan,
when the TV presenter, the now retired Barrie McDomittas,
announced, ‘Watch out for my old team’s debutant, Malachi Middlemound.

'His coach says they have to wait before training for him to say a prayer,
but he’s quick as lightning… hang on, he looks vaguely familiar…’

Well, if you loved watching Malachi play, read his biography,
Never Give Up, that year’s bestselling sports book.
It’s dedicated to Robert Geoffrey Burrow, every little sporting kid's hero.
For just like Malachi, when Little Rob got the ball,
the fans roared so hard the old stand at Leeds shook.