It was a great night for Derby at the Saboteur awards on Saturday night. Jamie Thrasivoulou, who is the official poet for Derby County FC, with his poem ‘We Are Derby’ played on the big screen before every home game at Pride Park stadium, was this year’s winner of the Saboteur award for best spoken word performer, it was announced at the presentation ceremony in Birmingham.

Best spoken word night went to Derby’s Word Wise, which is organised and compered by Thrasivoulou. Reviewing his poetry collection The Best of a Bad Situation for Write Out Loud, Emma Purhouse said: “In performance Jamie Thrasivoulou has a sten gun delivery. It is the rhythmical bang, bang, bang of the best of ranters’ performance poetry, laying audiences to waste …”

She added: “Thrasivoulou is a poet of the streets and the inner cities, and never tones it down, whether he is on the bill at a poetry festival or delivering to a crowd of 25,000 at Derby County’s Pride Park when the Rams play a home game. He isn’t afraid to take poetry to the people, and out of its open-mic comfort zone where poets often perform to poets who hold similar views to their own.”

Not only that … the Saboteur award for best collaborative work went by Man Up, by Restoke, a community project looking at masculinity and mental health based in Stoke, for which Thrasivoulou was the lead writer.

Best spoken word show was won by to Don’t Bother by Broccan Tyzack-Carlin, while Luke Wright’s After Engine Trouble, was voted best poetry pamphlet.

Best magazine was the Coventry-based literary mag Here Comes Everyone. Emma Lee was named best literature reviewer, Verve Poetry Press won best innovative publisher, while best literary festival went to Verve poetry festival.

You can find the full list of winners here