League laureate

A rugby league side are looking to improve their fortunes with a new high-profile signing - a poet. Wakefield Trinity Wildcats are poised to appoint poet Louis Kasatkin to help them on the pitch and on the terraces. As the club's poet laureate, he is expected to encourage the players as well as deliver prose on special occasions. Kasatkin is due to meet the club tomorrow. The poet said: "It will be interesting to see how sport and art mix together. I'm not going to be banging out 10 lines of doggerel every week - I see it more as a Poet Laureate-type appointment for special occasions."

John Pearman, Wildcats chief executive, said: "We want to promote the softer, gentler side of the game." Kasatkin's present home turf is his local pub, The Black Horse in Westgate, Wakefield, where his poetry group meets.