The empty scoreboard

Text: an original contemporary feature-style practice extract.

The scoreboard still displayed HOME and AWAY, though neither side had arrived for several years. Grass grew through a crack beside the goal. I had come to the old sports ground to photograph what had been lost, and the place seemed ready to cooperate: peeling paint, a padlocked gate, a row of seats collecting leaves.

Then a delivery van stopped outside the changing rooms. A woman carried boxes through a side door and asked whether I was looking for the food collection. The rooms were used twice a week to sort parcels for families. She showed me a bench covered with bread and tins, then a schedule pinned where the team photograph had hung. She did not call this a replacement for sport. The building was available, and people needed space.

I took the photograph of the scoreboard, but it no longer served as an account of the whole site. Behind the closed gate, one use had ended; through the side door, another continued. The pitch was still neglected. The boxes did not make that neglect disappear. They made the familiar word abandoned harder to use without asking which part of the place, and whose purpose, I meant.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to interest and engage the reader.

In your answer, consider:

• language features and techniques
• structural techniques
• the effect on the reader.

Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.