Bibliography

This time, I inhabited less stellar but no less interesting company, published in the samizdat magazine, Dementia 13

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

I had been writing nothing but poetry for ages but, encouraged by Eric Brown, I returned to fiction and short stories in the horror, SF, and fantasy genres.

There was an amazing gathering of talent in Cambridgeshire in the early years of the twenty first century including Chris Beckett, Eric Brown, Una McCormack, Ian Watson, and Ian Whates, and we met monthly in the Pickerel on Magdalene Street, Cambridge.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

A few years further down the line I was drawing fresh inspiration from another talented group of writers, Norwich Writers, many of whom were published authors, and my short fiction entered the mainstream, though with many fantastic elements still flowing as undercurrents to the main narratives.

Chief Mustard was awarded third prize in the 2015 Competition with entries coming from all around the world.

She met him online in a Games Chat Room…

The Thirteenth Station was awarded second prize by Ralph Jackman and third place in the Norwich Writers’ Members Shield judged by SE Craythorne.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

These Damn Conspirators was longlisted and therefore published by Norwich Writers, an extraordinarily generous state of affairs, but I was pleased, in my sadly competitive way, to maintain my record of the only member of Norwich Writers to be published in each of its annual anthologies.

I returned to Visionary, my history of the life and times of Michael Knighton, with renewed enthusiasm.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

The News from Arkansas was a political satire about a character called Johnson who struggled with his relationship with the truth.

Given the contentious and potentially libellous nature of the tale, and given the fact that not all readers and not all judges of literary competitions are socialists, I was relieved to be highly commended, and therefore published once again.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

Maze won third prize in the open competition and Lost as All These Stones was highly commended and shortlisted.

Maze was a brand new tale but Lost as All These Stones was a reworking of an old story.

I have around seventy short stories in need of revisiting and rewriting.

By this time, however, I was engaged upon my second sports book for Pitch Publishing: The Immortals: Two Nines and other Celtic Stories.

Writing short stories is perhaps my first and best love but pride of place upon my bookshelves still goes to my two major works for Pitch: Visionary and The Immortals.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

When Eric Brown told me that Maxim was looking for new and imaginative Holmes stories, I could not resist. My Holmes, to the eternal bewilderment of Watson, has been reincarnated in the twenty first century, and is on the trail of a missing Tibetan spiritual master.

(extract from opening paragraph of the story)

This book was thirty years in the making from the time I contacted Knighton at Old Trafford, where he was a director of Manchester United, hoping he would agree to allow me to ghost write his story of his attempt to purchase the iconic football club, to the deal with Pitch to publish the tale complete with all its revolutionary impact upon the history of British football.

Visionary, then, is the never-before-told inside story of Knighton’s doomed attempt to purchase Manchester United.

The book reveals:

Why the Old Trafford club has become the world’s most successful football business

How, in 1989, an axis was forged between two revolutionaries, between Knighton, the financial firebrand, and Alex Ferguson, the football rebel

How, this unacknowledged alliance was the driving force behind the Manchester United renaissance

How Martin Edwards and the United board of directors utilised Knighton’s financial blueprint to create the football club’s unparalleled success in the 1990s and 2000s

What happened when Edwards met Knighton at Killochan Castle

What was whispered in Knighton’s ear at half time in the cup tie between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United

What happened when Ferguson asked Knighton if he could break the bank – and the British transfer fee record

What was whispered in Knighton’s ear by Bobby Charlton before a cup final

What were Knighton’s financial arrangements to buy Manchester United – and the real reason why he returned the option-to-purchase contract

The ugly power of Britain’s red-top press, and why Robert Maxwell pursued a personal vendetta against Knighton

(a selection of colour photos taken from the centre of the book –

Two revolutionaries: Ferguson and Knighton, 1989

Knighton on the Old Trafford pitch, 1989

Knighton and Matt Busby, 1989)

(an extract from the first page of book – page 11 – first five paragraphs)

text about book

(an extract from the  book )