It began in the previous century

It all began — at least the professional part of my writing career — as a ghostwriter working in the north-west of England, with a weekly newspaper column on football, its finances and its powerbrokers.

As well as scribbling hackwork, I was working at real jobs: teaching in a godforsaken Catholic school in Holyhead; later, as a Football League club secretary at Carlisle, fending off creditors and bankruptcy.

For the last decade or so, however, I have been blessed in being able to write full-time — or as near to full-time as any writer ever gets. There have been two books about football, politics and power, a resurrection of my poetry, and so many stories that demanded to be told: some winning awards and commendations, some finding publication on both sides of the Atlantic.