tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78890971985195513782024-03-13T21:58:45.231-07:001889 books blogSheffield, literature, football and stuff - the world's expert on football fiction.1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-50807316730416942772021-03-13T13:43:00.009-08:002021-03-13T14:00:42.165-08:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSY3_2Jc8K4GnxB6FtmG9sHnkPQ68rXK-eGbxwgO5SAaeuYtoZprNPNlBuLFdevI15eKdlLqrbQBA4x4zMjRpJYuscMjXz0SMqBXbVOqsX2WedSCCYWR35J2Golc7OPEl_CHGqEQ9gblQo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSY3_2Jc8K4GnxB6FtmG9sHnkPQ68rXK-eGbxwgO5SAaeuYtoZprNPNlBuLFdevI15eKdlLqrbQBA4x4zMjRpJYuscMjXz0SMqBXbVOqsX2WedSCCYWR35J2Golc7OPEl_CHGqEQ9gblQo/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDOgQjeWLhbdEAv_eIto0w_pXje2_wOSHH1tOv1HvaHtpSreeDC2PU9rQijsgzdNnsbhR-UHzDLKGOWTN_0V0TmvtnB2FVmLjsVaQ690t5Rv88W84mgvNIZgRf-rSbJJLkfqVPIXRFktB/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1486" data-original-width="2048" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDOgQjeWLhbdEAv_eIto0w_pXje2_wOSHH1tOv1HvaHtpSreeDC2PU9rQijsgzdNnsbhR-UHzDLKGOWTN_0V0TmvtnB2FVmLjsVaQ690t5Rv88W84mgvNIZgRf-rSbJJLkfqVPIXRFktB/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">GOOD
FAITH AND EQUITY, OR PULLING A FAST ONE - written summer 2019</span></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText2" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For
most fans the battle that takes place on the pitch is the only one they’re
interested in, and that’s mostly fair enough. No one has ever put a poster of
their favourite chief executive on their bedroom wall. However, the current
battle for ownership of our club is likely to prove more important than what
the team achieved last season. The judgement is now expected in September but
that might not be the end of it, given the likelihood of appeals. The outcome
could influence this season’s prospects but also those of many seasons into the
future, perhaps even decades. If I still haven’t got your attention: some say
this could be the deciding factor in whether Wilder stays.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is bewildering for
fans, even those who have made an effort to read the reports and various
interim judgements in a complex case. It’s easy to just block your ears up and
go “lah-lah-lah.” You need a detailed understanding of company and contract
law, and too much time on your hands, to understand it all. As fans we also
rarely get a glimpse of what goes on behind the closed doors of the boardroom.
What is clear is that it is about much more than money. It is a battle for the
soul of our club – for what makes it special.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On one side are the McCabes
who, for over 25 years, are estimated to have put £100 million into the club
and have probably saved it from going into administration several times. A
family who are as passionate about this club and about Sheffield as we all are.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On the other side is a
Saudi who was only interested in owning a Premier League club, no matter which
one, and who looked at Charlton, Leeds, and West Ham before settling on
Sheffield United as perhaps as the cheapest route to getting his hands on one.
A man who only attended a match at Bramall Lane three times in his first three
years and who sees accusations of not understanding Sheffield or Sheffield
United’s heritage and values as “xenophobia.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText3" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For the anoraks who haven’t been following this case,
this is what it is about: essentially Prince Abdullah saw a way to get control
of Sheffield United for £5 million by pulling what any normal person would
be called a “fast one.” He shifted his shares around to avoid owning 75% of the
football club, which according to agreements would have meant he had to buy out
the ground and academy at commercial rates. Instead he would get away with
renting them off the McCabes at the advantageous rate they had set to put the
interests of the football team first. This “fast one” may well be within what
the law allows. What seems fair is irrelevant. The prince’s lawyer almost went
as far as admitting this “fast one.” He described the prince’s actions as
“acceptable.” He said that the McCabes’ claim rested “too much on good faith
and equity which doesn’t get them very far.” Had good faith and equity been
deployed – what would be fair play to you or I – he would have bought the
football club for £5 million and then paid the market rate for the clubs
assets. He launched the court case when the McCabes cried foul, and they put in
counterclaims. A lot more has come out in the court case: the failure of the
prince to invest as it was believed he would, that he can contemplate selling
Shirecliffe for housing land, his trouble getting loans (including using his
Saudi contacts such as the Bin Laden family), that he had to be taken to court
to try to secure investment at the start of last season (a situation only saved
by the sale of David Brooks), and just how toxic the relationship had become.
It makes Wilder’s and the team’s achievements even more remarkable against such
a backdrop.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m not saying Kevin
McCabe is a saint – you don’t get to be a successful businessman without a hard
edge and a certain ruthlessness, but he is a Blade and cares about the club and
its fans. He has made mistakes – he will admit that – which one of us hasn’t.
But it is lazy thinking to accuse him, as some fans do, of not spending money.
Firstly, that is not true; secondly, have you invested anywhere near as much in
United over the years? Even as a percentage of your income? No? Then you have
not earned a right to criticize.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For the younger fans and
those with short memories remind yourself of (or type into your search engine)
“Deane and Fjortoft” to see what a shambles we were before he took over. Also,
no one can deny just how unlucky we have been at times – had any one of those
twists of fate gone the other way we wouldn’t be even having this debate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With owners you have to
be careful what you wish for. You could be made to pay homage to a Far Eastern
king and watch cringeworthy videos before you know it. If you want a rich sugar
daddy, he’ll only buy you champagne and truffles and take you on his yacht as
long as it suits him. If later on he wants you to do things for him you don’t
like you can’t complain, and you could end up being dumped having lost
everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have a test of
people’s character: if I met them in a pub (or coffee bar) would they be happy to buy me a
pint (or coffee), and would I be happy to sit and chat with them. Anyone who has met Kevin
McCabe or his sons Scott and Simon will vouch that they would pass this test –
they would also be able to sensibly discuss the merits of overlapping
full-backs in the respective leagues and analyse the performance of the last
game.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If anyone else wants to
take me up on this test, mine’s a pint of Farmers Blonde (or an Americano). Ta.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-75391693997020664202019-09-12T14:59:00.002-07:002021-03-14T03:05:40.391-07:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4VTGSOBpN0vDEDDAzuM__wo3oeeg3MArvd7UCeC4-QfQ0VO71gbcwuTmGUciHO18w8JfBz0Ol3gh0-eTopN9b34wDplbxAkQ57Hz7hZiJJv8tkhfd8ND5Wc2oeerr3Nij5wD7g6Zgq8SW/s1854/002b.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1782" data-original-width="1854" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4VTGSOBpN0vDEDDAzuM__wo3oeeg3MArvd7UCeC4-QfQ0VO71gbcwuTmGUciHO18w8JfBz0Ol3gh0-eTopN9b34wDplbxAkQ57Hz7hZiJJv8tkhfd8ND5Wc2oeerr3Nij5wD7g6Zgq8SW/w400-h385/002b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-align: left;">All Aboard the Rollercoaster?</b></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">A lot has been written about mental health in players and hopefully things are improving. Playing sport is undoubtedly good for your mental as well as physical health but it can too easily lead to destructive behaviours and expectations, especially at performance levels of the game. I write this on the anniversary of Gary Speed's death (there are too many others); however, there is a lot less said about the relationship between the game and mental health amongst us fans.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Being a football fan – I mean a fan, not just a Sky Sports subscriber – is a strange thing. It really doesn't make much sense if you think about it too much. I have a standard quip when people: neighbours and non-fan friends say: "Enjoy the game!" it is: "I don't go to <i><b>enjoy</b></i> myself.” It leaves them rather bemused and, without a subsequent half-hour conversation, wondering why someone they didn't have down as dim-witted would waste so much time and money to go to a branch of the entertainment industry if not to enjoy themselves. After all, they go to the theatre, cinema or whatever with that one aim.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">None of that is to say that I don't sometimes, incidentally, enjoy myself at football – in fact there has been a much higher than average amount of enjoyment recently – so much that I've been wondering if recent bouts of good humour and optimism are normal in a human being. When life around you is shit, to be able to escape and think: "well at least the Blades are riding high" is such a good thing for us all, isn't it? And how refreshing. Going into work on a Monday after a weekend defeat at home to MK Dons with only a trip to Fleetwood to look forward to cannot have have been great for our mental health. But I suppose in football there is always hope, even when you're languishing in the third tier: that next match at the weekend could just be the turning point, it could just start to click, couldn't it? – when a Sammonesque player rediscovers early season promise?</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on mental health in relation to team success. Don't they say that national productivity increases after England successes, and that Harold Wilson got to Downing Street on the crest of a post-World Cup wave of optimism? I have also read that domestic violence is a linked to football results. All a bit weird isn't it? Why does it assume such an importance? Would I even the say disproportionate importance? And I'm going to risk courting controversy by saying: particularly for men. I think it meets some very innate need; that the way it went from nothing to a huge phenomenon in the late 19th century shows it filled a void in people's lives created by migration from the countryside to industrial towns, and has become even more important since. Human beings have a need for affirmation, to feel part of a tribe, and football provides all that. And what better release after hours of graft and rule-following during the week than to shout, to sing, to rant, and abuse authority (the referee) without getting sacked? For men particularly it provides an outlet for emotion that society still doesn't normally allow. It provides a justification for friendship and bond between fathers and sons. When I left home and lived away I'd phone home and if my dad answered it was invariably the football we discussed; when that ran out it was: "I'll get your mum." But at least we had that. As I say, I think for men the importance of their team in their minds is greater than for most women fans, who are more likely to get fulfilment of basic needs of belonging and affirmation from elsewhere: from a different sort of friend relationship and from family. That Bramall Lane is family friendly is a good thing, that fan diversity is on the increase is a good thing, but I can see the arguments against too much sanitisation and gentrification of the game – I can see why some fans feel it as a threat. Long may football fans avoid being choreographed and having their behaviour restricted and patrolled (other than for reasons of safety) for the sake of us all.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So, Wilder has affected my mental health. Put an Arsenal fan in front of me that one time and I'd start one of my favourite rants about how crap <i>Fever Pitch</i> was and how pathetic Arsenal fans are with their self-pity, moaning about their lack of success – try a spell in League One, or supporting a club that's the most underperforming in the country I'd say (when you plot a graph of attendance as against trophies), where the last fan who remembered winning a major trophy died quite a few years back etc. Now I'm not sure I could be bothered – my mood has changed, see? I suppose there is a counter-argument that being a Blade has made us resilient over the years. That you're better off being a pessimist because you're constantly surprised when things go right, whereas the eternal optimist can only feel let down all the time. I wrote in Dem Blades Issue 1 about taking my son to his first match at 12 weeks old. As I climbed the stand with him dangling from my front, I remember someone shaking their head at me and saying: "Subjecting him to a lifetime of misery." Well, who knows? And which is more fun: a rollercoaster or a train, a cycle ride through rolling countryside with ups and downs or along a flat road in the Fens? I can't start to imagine what it must be like being a Bury fan right now. To have all that taken away from you – with just the prospect of a trip to the retail park on a Saturday afternoon: a milky coffee at Costa after walking around Boundary Mills.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As I write this I keep thinking about the weekend's game and thinking we could get something out of it. Thank you Wilder, Knill, McCabe, the players and everyone else at the Lane. You should be on prescription.</p>1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-66710996536731446202019-06-30T12:06:00.032-07:002021-11-12T09:26:19.565-08:00Beware Sharks Ripping off Authors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_53E9HCfamPIF9K5C5hH5C8ClUdED3_Nfqgt8CP3SgpAjVTTHVEERlXkecZrraKQ8BQBuCmQoeJg-jw0AmRH0f__RHhBvg1Iw2i08XOHqmiDrb_y_hAN7FyuhVtX19drl2LK3je1_wE7/s1123/readers+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1123" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_53E9HCfamPIF9K5C5hH5C8ClUdED3_Nfqgt8CP3SgpAjVTTHVEERlXkecZrraKQ8BQBuCmQoeJg-jw0AmRH0f__RHhBvg1Iw2i08XOHqmiDrb_y_hAN7FyuhVtX19drl2LK3je1_wE7/w640-h452/readers+house.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once you've written your book –
hundreds or thousands of hours of work and got it published you hope
it will sell itself on the strength of its content. Sadly this is
rarely the case, especially if you are doing it yourself, without the marketing clout of the traditional publishers. Often finding all those readers who would love your
book is even harder than writing it. There's lots of advice out there
and a lot of sharks. I'm fed up with people taking advantage of hard-working writers.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hopefully you may have avoided those
awful people when you published: avoided “partnership publishing”
where the sharks rob you, playing on your hopes of success. First tip:
never pay more than a few pounds to publish – you can do it very
cheaply (see <a href="https://stevek1889.blogspot.com/2014/11/indie-publishing-on-shoestring-how-to.html" target="_blank">here</a> for example). I suggest you start off assuming you will
sell 300 - 400 copies maximum (a realistic figure for an indie-published book) then work out your
return on your investment – does it add up?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So back to the sharks. These people
will promise to connect you with readers through promotions on social
media through their millions of Twitter followers etc. But stop and
think. Are the people who would like your book on Twitter and
Instagram? Who ever buys a book based on what they see on Twitter?
Sometimes perhaps this can work but it carries a risk. Be aware of
that risk.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Everyone says that Amazon reviews are
important – algorithms and all that – so there are people who
promise you reviews. Let's look at one of them: they go by the name
of Author's House/BooksHouse/ Reader's House. I fell for it: was
duped. (See Twitter DMs below. Only a selection of them to give you a flavour.) They provided money back guarantees and seemed genuine so I
thought it was worth a punt. Sadly their promises were all hot air –
my $100 got one review on a blog and one on Amazon.com. I direct-messaged them to try to get them to honour their agreement, they
never replied, or rarely replied, then did nothing. Two years later
they are ignoring me. They are based in Egypt it seems but exactly who they are or whether they have ever
delivered for anyone I do not know.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Selling your books to people you know would love them remains the hardest challenge. Anyone else got any tips or advice?<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpGh5pNaFLSfmj6fZvJfWO-gxUj8wfJQznEQ_tA_vi3nlbg3SMObBl8Yxdwv87V7v1ARMUyogIu7GsZXahp7VF_LtF_Q3NZlWfUYF56Ef7MQp7JTkVQZ6Ub42Vc0bnLESIv9SGa9eGRjE/s1600/author%2527s+house+8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1255" data-original-width="794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpGh5pNaFLSfmj6fZvJfWO-gxUj8wfJQznEQ_tA_vi3nlbg3SMObBl8Yxdwv87V7v1ARMUyogIu7GsZXahp7VF_LtF_Q3NZlWfUYF56Ef7MQp7JTkVQZ6Ub42Vc0bnLESIv9SGa9eGRjE/s1600/author%2527s+house+8.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This was from July 2019:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5IhAp2cB4SRwTRmzcZNGA0hSZIgDuewQqjfWVEWhWWR0Zr17fFpJPZ7H1U0_mMgFgxRVZGcSGr5SvrqL4T0H5ppyWdgve-uL5XY-sRKzMg_e1ifS24zIY4kOrtipwfLekjBoyW7pRppe/s1600/author%2527s+house+9.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="613" height="585" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5IhAp2cB4SRwTRmzcZNGA0hSZIgDuewQqjfWVEWhWWR0Zr17fFpJPZ7H1U0_mMgFgxRVZGcSGr5SvrqL4T0H5ppyWdgve-uL5XY-sRKzMg_e1ifS24zIY4kOrtipwfLekjBoyW7pRppe/s640/author%2527s+house+9.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
The saga continued: </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZ62M8LKlTEDEjtS4bQxCUGQpBSu0Z76j0oYInjl5MFNQn_meFhfuacdUjR_iX7g4GU5-_rLwNemmrH0AXDeTuhoWIvjBJGoM3PP-mu4Sp3ARQwZmnH-iDWBhRiY-7dBOpmBltDXmHIZr/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="408" data-original-width="621" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZ62M8LKlTEDEjtS4bQxCUGQpBSu0Z76j0oYInjl5MFNQn_meFhfuacdUjR_iX7g4GU5-_rLwNemmrH0AXDeTuhoWIvjBJGoM3PP-mu4Sp3ARQwZmnH-iDWBhRiY-7dBOpmBltDXmHIZr/w400-h263/image.png" width="400" /></a></div>The latest: </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Eh9S2FzzwhIB7eln8UOJgY1t6K8kxILPzfQgpbiyU_oFnoho_UGdKisuLw8p7Frf__FcSpIGbT8ScPVdUJapt5BwUGPhrGDDdwQHn4GiBBgTs-x0BA82pF06PukBzZuncnWAUkv4vw5e/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="799" data-original-width="623" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Eh9S2FzzwhIB7eln8UOJgY1t6K8kxILPzfQgpbiyU_oFnoho_UGdKisuLw8p7Frf__FcSpIGbT8ScPVdUJapt5BwUGPhrGDDdwQHn4GiBBgTs-x0BA82pF06PukBzZuncnWAUkv4vw5e/w499-h640/image.png" width="499" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-21724469573419194552019-05-27T08:08:00.000-07:002019-05-27T08:08:29.088-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd6FqHUs_FOvGqAospNWJy0SH4o1Go4CnSip0JdxfqcBQoEETDBphl1_dOzqFbGASmMQ9tfOnAdz3EesKTEMlqUjywuQ3tChSTjvNufTxKnFkysr-NvMMY2U4M4W_JT2t9rxaijqrquTKo/s1600/sheffield+pictures+039+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1600" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd6FqHUs_FOvGqAospNWJy0SH4o1Go4CnSip0JdxfqcBQoEETDBphl1_dOzqFbGASmMQ9tfOnAdz3EesKTEMlqUjywuQ3tChSTjvNufTxKnFkysr-NvMMY2U4M4W_JT2t9rxaijqrquTKo/s640/sheffield+pictures+039+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u>I</u></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Here, a seed was
sown, a spark was lit. These buttresses the oldest structure for
miles around, though no one really cares – their value is function.
Unlike the once vaunted seat of civic pride; blackened, abandoned,
ashamed – it cannot even tell the truth about the hour, but for the
middle of the day and night. Brown, glazed brick crenulations stand
opposite the ghost of the castle, taken down stone by stone when
family fought family. Useful building materials. We are makers not
conservers.</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
II</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Above, two men
manhandle carpet roll ends from lorry to trolley. Below, where the
heron often stalks statuesque, unnoticed, twin ducklings, caramel
spots and vees on their chocolatey backs, nibble at some coins –
three pennies and a five pence piece – dropped with forlorn wishes
onto submerged plywood. The foam-flecked, beery current is too
strong: one strays and is swept downstream, fighting its way back,
dipping under till its feet hit shingle, carrying on like nothing
happened, a protective wing briefly flashing iridescent blue. Will
they ever know such carefree hours again?
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
III</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Striking out from a
tiny island, a scarlet-beaked moorhen pecks inquisitively at
discarded chicken bones; then, hidden until now, black fluffy blobs,
all allosaur arms and legs, make their move for the cover of native
willow and forget-me-not, rubbing along with balsam and knotweed.
Above, hard faced great granddaughters of buffer girls, with
pushchairs; small boy with tight black curls, brown and blue
ice-cream; Somali man, almost dancing as he crosses, purple velour
tracksuit; green, gold and black bag on his back. A Chinese man runs,
holding his daughter; then she is set free, pigtails bobbing,
laughing, pink checked dress flashing.
</div>
<br /></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-67137007510990707872018-12-11T12:39:00.001-08:002018-12-14T02:45:26.408-08:00A Tale of Two Pigeons. Fitzalan Square. The Third Sunday of Advent. (A short story)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpQoUg7UNlnzbPA4yZ9jlGvk_VlPJnM3zojZiNp637cnhdAliZfoT5hnqEIZdZOkf5zRVoFW-6vIDrv7mqu2oTh0tQ3VvWJ5-IDaavODRZEypM0o6kaw5JoGiLMMR1pkaAmfFunFlCIHT/s1600/21042015100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpQoUg7UNlnzbPA4yZ9jlGvk_VlPJnM3zojZiNp637cnhdAliZfoT5hnqEIZdZOkf5zRVoFW-6vIDrv7mqu2oTh0tQ3VvWJ5-IDaavODRZEypM0o6kaw5JoGiLMMR1pkaAmfFunFlCIHT/s640/21042015100.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
St Vinny'<span style="text-align: left;">s</span> "loft"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>(There's an audio version of this at: <a href="https://www.1889books.co.uk/a-tale-of-two-pigeons-fitzalan-squa" target="_blank">https://www.1889books.co.uk/a-tale-of-two-pigeons-fitzalan-squa</a> )</b></span></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Nah then, Darren, a’reight?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ey up! Is that Kev? Bloody hell, Kev. How’s it blowin’, lad?<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Sound mate, yeah.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Not seen thi for yonks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been nowhere mate – just mi ol’ territory. Where’s tha been?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Well, we ’ad to clear out of St. Vinny’s. Proper loft that were, but the
upright pigs moved in and cleared us aht.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Oh ar, I heard about that – didn’t they murder innocent eggs?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yeah, ’orrible it were. Smashed nests an’ everything. So me an’ t’ lads went up ’illsborough after Tramlines to clean up. It were a reight good scoff –
should’ve been there, mate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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All t’ decent lofts are disappearing, these days. What were it at St Vinny’s?
Not more bloody student lofts were it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Ar, reckon so.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Dun’t they build owt else? I were at
Wharneliffe Works for a bit, then the upright pigs came and started blocking up
the flights. Bastards!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar... Bastards!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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I’ve gorra reight pad in the Old Town Hall nah.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Nice. I might try gerrin’ in t’ Winter Gardens for the neet, me. Love it in
theer. Burr it’s tricky gerrin’ in…. What tha had for thi tea?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Good old Greggs’ pasty – only a tad squashed an’ all. Not bad pickings the
neet. What about tha?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Pizza vomit up West Street outside Nando’s. Allus decent pickings up theer this
time of year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar. True enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar....... Tha still seeing that Debs?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Nah, mate. She copped it, poor lass.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Oh, ar? Whar ’appened?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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We were having a scoff – load of noodles spilt on t’ floor outside Yep Yep
Hotpot and this bloody falcon swoops dahn an’ nabs her an’ carries her off up
t’ top o’ St George’s.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Shame that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar. Tha don’t wanna go near theer – student leftovers or no. Still… plenty more
pigeons in t’ sky, as my ol’ ma used to say. An’ I’ve still gorr’ it. I can
still puff my chest out and strut my stuff. I might have a stumpy foot burr
everythin’ else works; know what I mean?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Here, does that old fella still tip aht a carrier bag o’ bread at t’ top of
Angel Street?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar, sometimes. Reight scoff that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Reight scoff! Bit like that up Hillsborough wi’ loads o’ duck bread… ’ere, I’m
just goin’ up for a traditional festive crap on ol’ Eddie’s head. Tha coming?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Don’t mind if I do. Honourin’ the old traditions and that pasty’s on its way
through.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Take that, Ed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Haha. Season’s greetings, Eddie.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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’ere…. I thought summat were missing. What happened to all t’ trees, Kev? It
were a reight cosy loft of a summer’s night ’ere. Many’s a lass I’ve cooed to
up in them branches.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Bloody upright pigs weren’t it. Chopped ’em dahn – just to spite us I reckon –
can’t be no other reason. Made a reight mess of it ’an’t they.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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What they gorr against trees?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Buggered if I know. Bastards!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Ar. Bastards..... Here, Kev – dahn theer! Them upright pigs are chuckin’ summat
dahn. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Bloody hell, it’s mince pies – I’m on it.
Landing gear engaged!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Wait – I love a mince pie, me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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I’ll be well set up for Chrimbo nah, Daz. I were going to go for a bit of a
race round wi’ t’ gang over t’ Crown Court, burr I’m not sure I’ll be able to
move after this lot.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Kev! It’s gone dark, Kev!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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I can’t move, Daz. I’m trapped!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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It’s not that Falcon is it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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No it’s...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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K– <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
- Oh I say two nice fat ones. That’s Christmas dinner sorted, Nigel:
pan-fried pigeon breasts served with a red wine jus, fondant potatoes, celeriac
puree, asparagus foam and pea shoots!<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqB3Wugr1rVFuu7012E5Geo0cV8sXTl0ambMxbqTldLegRWmKvDedLjEyhLjJhkcxMYzEbHb5ZDjHulLUMIQMzGaSOUDmLgbR9uvCcnSv4IpbjGoetqj4pkwSHuq_A9-aTe28hOpHsVrA/s1600/800px-Plume_de_pigeon_au_jardin_de_compans_%25C3%25A0_Toulouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqB3Wugr1rVFuu7012E5Geo0cV8sXTl0ambMxbqTldLegRWmKvDedLjEyhLjJhkcxMYzEbHb5ZDjHulLUMIQMzGaSOUDmLgbR9uvCcnSv4IpbjGoetqj4pkwSHuq_A9-aTe28hOpHsVrA/s200/800px-Plume_de_pigeon_au_jardin_de_compans_%25C3%25A0_Toulouse.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-10775545685549337722018-05-15T14:35:00.003-07:002018-05-15T14:38:47.913-07:00The plight of the novel in society when kids refuse to grow up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
There is plenty of advice out there on how to get an agent, and much of it is similar. So, it must be right, yes?<br />
<br />
Well, given that agents stand guard over the watchtower that protects the entrance to the fortress of publication, what they say goes. Without them you will not get a foot on the drawbridge; the portcullis will never be raised, no matter how much you shout at the thick stone walls. They all say they are on the lookout for new writers to excite them – to elevate some poor aspiring writer amongst the many on the outside all hoping to access the London literary citadel. And there are so many millions on the outside: too many people writing books, which quite frankly aren’t very good. It is therefore hard for even superb, new books to surface above the vast sea of mediocrity. The agent becomes a necessity.<br />
<br />
But the focus of agents by necessity is on the inside of their castle – first and foremost they have to make money from their existing list of authors. That is how they pay their bills, buy their Prosecco. That means spending time and effort schmoozing with publishers and promoters to get those projects onto the mass market – selling tens of thousands on the shelves of Tesco and the newsagents at railway stations and airports.<br />
<br />
They all claim to be in favour of diversity, but they cannot easily take a risk with something that is not like something else that has already sold well, or with a book by an unknown whose very name does not automatically generate interest in our celebrity-obsessed society. If you regularly appear on TV, your new children’s book / romance / kiss-and-tell is a shoo-in, whether it is any good or not. The book has to be a good bet to sell to the thirty-something, tube-riding, Pret A Manger-eating, aspirational female.<br />
<br />
So, agents become the arbiters of taste. The advice that comes down from on high is advice – not on what makes for good literature – but what they might best be able to clinch a big deal on with publisher. Do they amount to the same thing? Sadly not.<br />
<br />
An agent will spend a small proportion of their time looking at submissions. They will rarely read past the first page – if they even get as far as picking the manuscript up. They rarely waste their valuable time in correspondence, or the basic courtesy of a reply to an inquiry letter. So, what is the advice for that crucial first page? They all say they have to be grabbed immediately by what they read; they want to be in the story straight away. These are not people who are fond of a long slow chat-up or gentle foreplay. They want their pants down on page one. George Eliot would not get her novels looked at if she was around today. Adam Bede has one of the best introductions in English literature but it is long and slow and descriptive and you have been reading some time before anything much happens. It leads the reader gently by the hand rather than thrusting them rudely up against the wall.<br />
<br />
An intelligent reader of these modern high-octane novels, soon tires of the formula, of immediate peril, of tension being cranked up, of being psychologically manipulated by an author who is writing to a recipe. Louise Doughty’s brilliant novel Stone Cradle is skilfully crafted, is languid. It is as near perfect as a novel can be. Yet it is the Alton Towers-ride, nauseating rush, of Apple Tree Yard that is popular and sold in large numbers.<br />
<br />
What is going on? It is all symptomatic of an infantilization of society. Those who read Harry Potter, who proudly announce they favour YA fiction as a genre. Thinking is a trait to be discouraged – in fact, how often do you hear it proudly rejected – when you tell someone about a great book and they reply that they don’t read books but have seen the film because it requires nothing from them. It is mere passivity. Who but a crank would read Tolstoy these days? Anna Karenina is a terrible book by modern standards – badly plotted, dreadfully paced, parallel, largely unrelated stories (of Levin and Anna), far too wordy and full of description that does not serve the plot. And the title is just boring and says nothing about what the book is about.<br />
<br />
As authors we are told we are competing not with other authors but with other forms of entertainment. What hope then for an author who wants to write intelligent adult fiction in a world where there are fewer and fewer grown-ups? Where people in their 20s, 30s or 40s go and watch Star Wars without even the excuse of taking their kids with them. Grown-ups who still drink fizzy pop, who prefer their coffee milky and caramelly, who dress like American teenagers, and who can’t be bothered to work out how to vote so trip out the mantra that “they are all the same.” That is of course the point. Large corporations want brand loyalty, they need you to be a slave to your smartphone, to upgrade it every year, and it suits governments who don’t want you to think for yourself – they want you to leave them to get on with it otherwise they might lose power and risk the overly large slice of the cake they and their friends enjoy.<br />
<br />
If that has depressed you, take heart. Just as indie-music kicked down the doors of the stronghold of the likes of the EMI, RCA, Polydor and CBS in the late 70s, so there are more and more small and independent publishers out there who are not tied to huge print runs, who are fleet of foot, not tied to London, who run a tight budget and care more about great literature than shovelling stodge down the throats of the masses. The big publishers like to regard themselves as guarantors of quality, but as with music in the 1970s, they no longer have such a monopoly. The big publishers still have a stranglehold on the shelf space and tablespace in big bookshops, but readers are finding other ways to discover a more varied, richer reading diet.<br />
<br /></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-42657164139932310792017-11-17T14:28:00.002-08:002017-11-17T14:28:23.880-08:00My Off the Shelf Sheffield Short Story Competition runner-up story.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="1434" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCUhPUdx_FprgtgwMG81YBwCzZsbF0xpYm5ML99F3H9-rV40ntUoeBq2cRLmCdMB4wlRN-FLXXXIsoTIgkkfXHU9DxOp9n1ToLmkVoW8rGFKY1EnJ2l-CeRCdWMO4oMJp3Z0dr7zLXxh2W/s640/snooker+loopy.jpg" width="640" /><a href="https://youtu.be/3loScg4Glfc">https://youtu.be/3loScg4Glfc</a></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-68673241667246120522016-07-01T00:15:00.004-07:002016-07-01T00:19:34.579-07:00A Mother's Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoTitle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoTitle" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">A
Mother’s Love</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Joe
stepped off the train and held the package close to his side. He adjusted his
weight on his crutch and dropped his kit bag to the platform. It smelt like
home – the grease and steam from the engine mixed with that distinct smell of
man, beast and machine working flat out to produce shells and armour plate. And
yet there was no joy in him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Mick’s mother lived in the notorious Crofts; he would take a cab from
the front of the station: people moved aside, a look of horror mixed with pity
in their eyes. Before he could attempt to rebuild his life he had to give her
this – all that was left of Mick wrapped in, now smutted, brown paper – Christ!
how was he going to explain to her. The Christmas table at Mick’s would have a
very empty seat. Good ol’ Mick – what a bloody laugh they’d had last year – as
he lost his last Christmas dinner over the side in the Bay of Biscay. Sailing
to Egypt was just one big adventure then for boys who, until they’d enlisted,
had never been further than Derby that happy September day in times of
innocence when the United netted five. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The old horse strained to move the cab away – all
the good ones had been blown to bits in France. Town looked just the same, and
yet everything had changed. He fingered the string on the packet – Mick’s book
– his Bible – his lucky charm – with a sniper’s bullet right through the middle
of it. What sort of God was this? As he’d lain there next to Mick he felt warm
liquid seeping over his own chest – he’d been hit too. Except, when he’d felt
inside, it was just his pewter flask leaking whisky where it had been punctured
by shrapnel. The bloody irony of that! The sweet boy who’d taken the pledge,
shot dead through his holy book, and the sinner saved by his sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ten minutes before Zero on the first of July they’d left the trench,
comrades side by side, as the mortars opened up a hurricane bombardment and a
huge mine exploded to the south shattering the world and sending smoke and
earth hundreds of feet into the sky, drowning out even the deafening noise of
the bombardment. There they’d lain down in the middle of No Man’s Land as
grenades and artillery flew over. Then it went quiet, momentarily – perhaps it
wouldn’t happen after all? But Zero had arrived – the artillery started again
and the whistles blew. They got to their feet – they had to walk with rifles
raised, not run – and then all of hell descended. They were supposed to be
going forward but didn’t: as the front line fell more targets took their place,
bodies piled up and blood and humanity mixed with mud. Screams and moans and
cries of “mother” from boys only just in breeches pierced through the din, the
smoke, the blasts that shook and rent flesh. Him and Mick pushed on but the
bloody wire was still there and they couldn’t cross the last few yards. Then
Mick fell and he’d picked him up and dragged him towards a shell hole – then a
grenade went off and he came round with Mick under him and a searing pain in
his foot and across the side of his face. Mick was conscious; he tried to keep
him talking but gradually he had faded in his arms. He kissed him, but he had
never known just how much he meant to him. How could he ever? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> There were a few of the Pals in that shell hole. They’d had to fight
like hell to defend that open grave until nightfall. Then he’d had to leave
Mick – along with all the others they stepped over on their way back. All he
could return of Mick was that precious Bible – the one with pressed poppies and
wild flowers in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> He had been amongst the one in three of the City Battalion that
survived that day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> He was shipped out to a first aid station and was spared those next
three nightmare days clearing up the mess. He had tried to find out if Mick’s
body had been retrieved and buried – he couldn’t bear to think of that
beautiful boy – out there – being stripped by rats and maggots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The next day the post from home arrived and they were instructed to
open it all – cigarettes, chocolates, socks, packed up with tender cards,
letters of good wishes and prayers sent out to a God who just wasn’t there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> No afterlife. Just this. One go at getting it right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> No post arrived for Mick, for which he was grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He tried to give the cabbie the one and six but he
refused it – always that look in their eyes – he’d rather have their respect.
He stood and looked round for the right courtyard. A child stood gawping at
him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Nah den kid, weer’s Mick Flannery’s ’ouse?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The child, bare-footed and wearing clothes his own
mother wouldn’t have considered fit for cleaning cloths, led him timidly into a
soot-blackened courtyard. There was a stench of overflowing middens; some hens
pecking near an open drain and the broken paving was coated in brown slime. He
shuddered as his mind flashed back to July. His hand went up to the claret scar
on his cheek. The boy indicated the house; Joe tossed him a ha’penny and
approached the door. He took a deep breath and knocked. A girl pulled the door
open, something in those blue eyes said she was Mick’s sister – how could he
not know? – but Mick never spoke of his family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Yeah?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Is Mrs Flannery in?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Mother there’s a fella at t’ doo-er’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘What’s ’e want?’ came a voice from inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I dunno.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Joe waited. A dishevelled woman came out of the
gloom. She was filthy; grey, matted hair, ancient-looking. Joe thought she had
been drinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I’m looking for Mrs Flannery – Michael’s mother.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Tha’s found ’er.’ Joe was shocked. This woman could
surely never have given birth to someone so beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘I’m a friend of Mick’s.’ He held out the package.
‘This was his Bible. I think he might have wanted you to have it.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Tha can keep it. I’m not bothered.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The door closed in his face. He didn’t move. She was
supposed to invite him in, ask how Mick died, weep and wail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How could a mother’s love be less than his own?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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You can get the book that this story is taken from <u><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joe-Stepped-Off-Train-stories-ebook/dp/B01D3VL1SC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467357032&sr=1-1&keywords=joe+stepped+off+the+train">here</a></u></div>
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All author royalties go to War Child to help support children in conflict affected parts of the world.</div>
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Thanks.</div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-70176843449316451862016-04-15T12:47:00.000-07:002016-05-06T06:34:29.194-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Helen Hollick is a writer herself as well as the Historical Novel Society's Indie editor.<br />
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It is confusing for readers faced with the plethora of indie-published novels to know whether any of them they are worth spending time and money on. At least a commercially published novel is a guarantee that it has passed some sort of quality threshold isn't it? (Not always. Many of them are plain rubbish or badly written). In my experience, indie-novels can be superb - they may just have been over-looked or not sufficiently "like something else" that has sold well: how many times do you see books sold using things such as: "Will appeal to fans of..." (insert "Downton Abbey," "Ian Rankin," "Harry Potter," "Call the Midwife," "Kathy Lette," or just about anything popular). Do we always want to read the same old stuff? How many more books on the Tudors can we take? Indie-novels don't make it onto the shelves of Tesco just because they are <u>not</u> like anything else, <u>not</u> written by authors with an already large fan-base, and <u>not</u> written by celebrities. They may still be very good in their niche, but not something that large publishers feel they can take a risk on because there is no guarantee of selling 10,000+ copies.<br />
So, how do readers find these gems amongst all the dross? (and let's face it there is a lot of dross). Large numbers of reviews on Amazon may be one way, but what about novels that have not managed to reach readers in the first place, and can you always trust that reviews are not just posted by mates of the author?<br />
One way is to rely on other thresholds of quality, such as the HNS Indie Editor's picks.<br />
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This month Helen is doing a fantastic job showcasing some of these indie gems on her A to Z Challenge blog. Each day in a April a different book is featured using the fun idea of interviewing the books' lead characters. All of the books featured are, readers can be reassured, good reads, and the authors know their subjects and have the skills to entertain their readers.<br />
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Follow this link to <a href="http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/e-is-for-evergreen-in-red-and-white.html">Helen Hollick's blog</a>, bringing my character Rab Howell back to life (copied below). There you'll also find the link to the other 25 books all of which come with a guarantee of indie-quality:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Throughout April I have invited 26 authors who had been selected as Editor's Choice by the Historical Novel Society Indie Reviews</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"> to help me out with the 2016 A-Z Blog Challenge...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Except to be a little different I interviewed </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">their leading Character/s...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Today's Character is from :</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : Hello! I believe you exist in Steven Kay’s</span><span style="color: #333399;"> </span><span style="color: #333399;">novel – </span><i style="color: #333399;">The Evergreen in red and white</i><span style="color: #333399;">. Would you like to introduce yourself – who you are, what you do etc?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Now just hold up. I don’t know how you’re doing this. I never went in for all that hokabens – y’know old Romany folk looking into the future – just a money making trick. I’ve been dead for nigh on eighty year, lass! But anyroad, I’ll try my best, like I allus do. They call us Rab – Rabbi Howell – them newspaper types they sometimes called us “the terrier” or “the evergreen.” I were one of the best h<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">alf-backs in my day – some days the very best in England. Played right up to when that lundy sod from Burnley broke us leg – they heard the crack all round t’ ground.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : Where and when are you? Are you a real historical person or did your author create you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh right, I see. I were real enough. I were born on a hill just outside Sheffield – a gypsy see. When were it? – I dunno – a fair while back – an’ I started playing for the United in 1890. Before that I were a hewer – down t’pit. Becoming a professional footballer were one of the best things that happened to us – that and meeting Ada. That were in 1897 – what a year that were, eh?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH. In a few brief sentences: what is the novel you feature in about?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">What I just said, lass – that year when I met Ada. It were a bit awkward – ’cause I were already married – an’ it were a bit of a scandal, an’ football clubs back then were right strict about stuff like that – run on strict Methodist lines – “</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: black;">nobody ever gets lost on a straight road” was the watchword. Well <i>my</i>road weren’t that straight sometimes, shall we say. The United won the Championship that year – they wouldn’t have wi’out me – but carryin’ on got us the sack, an’ I were already a Liverpool player by t’ last day o’t’ season. Only time they’ve ever won it an’ all.</span></span><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : I ‘met’ my pirate, Jesamiah Acorne on a beach in Dorset, England – how did your author meet up with you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He says he first read about us back in 1989 and spent the best part of 20 year – daft sod – wonderin’ if what were written about us were true – they said I were sacked for match fixing – I’d’ve swung for anyone who accused us of that: my only crime were to fall for Ada.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : Tell me about one or two of the other characters who feature with you - husband, wife, family? Who are some of the nice characters and who is the nastiest one?</span></div>
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Well there’s Ada of course – wi’ her beautiful blue eyes an’ red hair – Irish lass. Then Selina, the missus, and the kids: Lizzie, Little Selina, Little Rabbi and the baby. And the United team, and Victorian Sheffield – can that be called a character? Nastiest ones were the Philanthropist or the Tooth-yanker maybe – them what got us sacked.<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : What is your favourite scene in the book?</span></div>
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Well I’ll let yer know summat for nowt – it’s mostly made up! That Kay fella – cheeky sod – reckons to know what I were up to, but, leastways, the football’s authentic – that game against Villa were a cracker. Me an’ Ada at the theatre – he makes us out as bein’ a right soppy sod – I never were really. Not me – not Rabbi Howell. Hard as nails me.<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : What is your least favourite? Maybe a frightening or sad moment that your author wrote.</span></div>
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I didn’t like being reminded about that nightmare in Sunderland – where they said I scored two own goals – and them Sunderland fans! It were a tough year right enough. He might have made stuff up, but I reckon it were a half-decent stab at it. I don’t come out on it too bad do I? You can see fair enough why I had to leave my family?<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : What are you most proud of about your author?</span></div>
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Proud? Nah – not proud on him. He does what he likes. Nowt to do wi’ me. But gi’ him his due – me and Ada were buried in an unmarked grave in Preston, an’ they’d even got Ada’s name wrong in’t book – had us buried with a stranger it sempt. Now I’ve got a right grand headstone – fit for an England International – that’s down to him an’ his book. So that’s not bad, eh?<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : Has your author written other books about you? If not, about other characters? How do you feel about your author going off with someone else!</span></div>
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Aye. He says he’s on wi’ stuff. Full of daft ideas if you ask me. Summat about a copper – another story from back in my day, and another about a miner of all bloody things. Says he’s sending stuff to agents but not to get him started on that.<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">HH : As a character if you could travel to a time and place different to your own fictional setting</span><span style="color: #333399;"> </span><span style="color: #333399;">where and when would you go?</span></div>
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Tell you what, though, I wouldn’t mind playing football these days – most I earnt were four quid a week – more than a miner, granted – but only just. Imagine if I were playing for the United or Liverpool now, eh? And another thing: you know Liverpool an’ all their money – they contributed nowt to my headstone: not a brass farthing. Preston and Sheffield Untied were there, but bloody Liverpool – they insulted me, and my gypsy curse is on them!<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Thank you that was really interesting!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Now where can readers of this A-Z Blog Challenge find out more about you and your author?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Website: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.theevergreen.co.uk/&source=gmail&ust=1460828862161000&usg=AFQjCNHfZYuyi9eWrUCmORR3Rmnh6axzaQ" href="http://www.theevergreen.co.uk/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.theevergreen.co.uk/</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Facebook: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.facebook.com/SteveK1889&source=gmail&ust=1460828862162000&usg=AFQjCNEGjvoEzJA0obQKPfARRwAX_S-0Dg" href="https://www.facebook.com/SteveK1889" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>SteveK1889</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Twitter: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/SteveK1889&source=gmail&ust=1460828862162000&usg=AFQjCNEME6gHyW1e0_IvqM975z3S_37eZg" href="https://twitter.com/SteveK1889" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/SteveK1889</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Blog: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/&source=gmail&ust=1460828862162000&usg=AFQjCNG6nSpN86XknBvNyjPxUNNMvY4qig" href="http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.<wbr></wbr>uk/</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333399;">Buy on Amazon: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Evergreen-Red-White-Steven-Kay/dp/1780357583/ref%3Dasap_bc?ie%3DUTF8&source=gmail&ust=1460828862162000&usg=AFQjCNEPm8wX37_O6EQRftK6Jh11WNz32g" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Evergreen-Red-White-Steven-Kay/dp/1780357583/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.co.uk/<wbr></wbr>Evergreen-Red-White-Steven-<wbr></wbr>Kay/dp/1780357583/ref=asap_bc?<wbr></wbr>ie=UTF8</a></span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-28946898440509831522016-04-01T01:47:00.004-07:002016-05-02T06:09:56.278-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Joe Stepped off the Train</i> (and other stories) is a new collection of short stories by debut and established authors, all with a war theme: how it affects people and changes lives. It started life as a short story conversation between myself and a colleague: following a short story competition at work for which we both chose the same starting line from the given list (The “Joe Stepped off the Train” of the title), and both coincidentally chose a war theme. We went on to write some more but it fizzled out at 8 stories.<br />
So, in the summer of 2015, I put out an appeal on social media and the blogosphere asking writers to contribute: the idea being that all royalties would be donated to <i>War Child</i>. The result has been a genuine collaborative effort: in compiling the collection I set out to not just accept or reject contributions. I have had my fill of that kind of approach being taken with writers. Instead I chose to work with the writers to make them the best stories they could be.<br />
It has turned out to be, not a jumble of short stories, but a really coherent collection of stories that complement each other: tackling subjects like bereavement, love, hope, determination: feelings that war and conflict intensify. It is exciting to be able to contribute something to <i>War Child</i> – a great little charity which aims to provide sustainable support to the most marginalised and vulnerable children and young people in conflict-affected parts of the world — through work rooted in local communities: <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.warchild.org.uk/">https://www.warchild.org.uk/</a></span><br />
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Please take a peek at our video, (and please buy the book to support <i>War Child)</i>:<br />
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My Radio Sheffield interview - </div>
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This is the press release:</div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-26472788019790417382016-03-09T11:57:00.001-08:002016-03-09T11:57:50.577-08:00Interview with Paul Breen, author of The Charlton Men<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: Football fans are supposedly not interested in fiction – preferring autobiographies (the book stands are flooded with them after all). What made you want to go against received wisdom?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Paul: I suppose there were a couple of reasons. First I hoped that this wasn’t just a book for football fans. Secondly I think there is a market out there for fiction that has a football theme because on many of the fans’ forums at Charlton, for example, supporters often post threads relating to the books they are currently reading. However I have found from experience that there is a perception out there that a book is either football or it is fiction, and something between the two camps can confuse people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-size: 18.6667px; text-indent: -45pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> That said, quite a few people have suggested that I have got the blend right in terms of how the two aspects are connected and spread out in the story. It has appealed to football fans and non-fans alike, but not in the same numbers as something such as Fever Pitch or the Football Factory which are more clearly autobiographical with underlying elements of fiction. I would hope though that the book does serve as an example of how it is possible to combined football and fiction, and would like to think we will see more of this combination from others in the future. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: Did you originally go down the conventional route of trying to get published: sending submissions to agents etc? How was it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Paul: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, I sent the book off to several agents and publishers before finally getting it accepted and then published by Thames River Press, an independent imprint that was operating on a shoestring budget compared to the main publishing houses. I got replies from several agents and some publishers around the same time, with the latter saying that they were mostly interested in autobiographies, as the previous question suggests. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: I don’t think most readers have any idea how much graft goes into writing a novel, and how little the return is per book sold. Any idea how long it took you to write The Charlton Men? How do you fit it in around life?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Paul: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> It was about two years from start to finish in terms of the journey from first draft to publication. It was also a very busy period in my working life, and I was studying a course at the same time. Originally, I did this as a hobby just to see where the story went and then when I finally found a publisher who showed interest I took a couple of short periods off work to put together the finished draft. It’s certainly a tough slog and the hardest part is the editing and the proof reading, once the writing is complete. I never try to calculate time spent versus profits made because the hours would soon turn to nothing more than pennies! That can be de-motivating in some ways but I enjoy writing so I stick at it, even if I doubt that I will ever make a living out of it. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: Despite enjoying your book, I’ve been more critical than your other reviews which show the book has been well received. It was perhaps more the technical, writing stuff that was a problem for me rather than the story and the characters who were strong and believable. Do you want to come back at me on that?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Paul: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In all honesty, constructive criticism is beneficial for a writer because it serves as a guideline for the future and also a spur to do better. In your feedback Steve, you talked about my tendency to overdo the ‘literary’ style of my writing, and I suppose this comes from an attempt to try and stand out by being poetic. I’m not even sure that this was a case of not editing enough. In places it was a case of editing so much that I was trying to create lines that might be more at home in a poem, which isn’t always what is expected in a book such as this. I should have known that from having studied Literature at university, but in the heat of editing and facing a deadline for getting the book out it’s often possible to forget the simplest of things. Some people have loved that, and interestingly many of those are female readers with not so much interest in football. Most of my male readers and football supporters have commented on the strength of the backstory and of the characters, especially Lance and Fergus, which is something that you also commented on, so I have got lots of feedback of different types, but all constructive.</span><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: Should a reviewer go easier on an indie-author than a commercially published one – given that indies don’t have the backing of a team of editors, proof-readers, marketing people etc. to help polish out the flaws?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Paul: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s very true that there were a lot less people helping me out, but I don’t think it would be helpful for me, or anyone else, as a writer if reviewers said good things just for the sake of it. In fact it is probably more important and valuable to get writing advice from outsiders when you work with a small publishing house. Also, regardless of the size of the publishers, I have heard from other writers that there is a tendency for much of the analysis of the book to be done in advance of publication and less once it is out there on the market. Therefore as writers we rely on our audience and our critics to give us their opinion. Besides, as they often say in marketing, there’s no such thing as bad publicity because in the long term it drives all of us on to do better. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: I read somewhere that this was the first in a trilogy. Is that still the case? If so does it follow Lance, Fergus and Katy? Are you currently working on this?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Paul: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Originally I agreed to write three books, and have written a sequel that does also feature the same main characters, with some more added in. This one is less literary and more of a crime story than a football story, although there are still plenty of references to and descriptions of football. I have several agents and publishers looking at this at the moment because Thames River Press has not been producing anything in recent times, and may not be able to release the sequel. It can be very hard though to get a sequel published since most agents and publishing houses do see it as being like adopting somebody else’s baby! I would also prefer not to go down the self-publishing route because as you have said a good book should come about as a result of a team effort. I do though have quite a few readers of the original who are waiting on the second and hope to get that released at some point this year.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: Times; font-size: 18.6667px;">Steve: Thanks, Paul. Best of luck with it.</span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-90714626888255722082015-10-25T04:28:00.000-07:002015-10-25T05:12:33.620-07:00Early Class Influences on Football<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Article first published in issue 9 of <i>The Football Pink</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X4ndSlBxpA9FOP6zR44L6JYMCSRG3OpCxOq321jY8nhqvEblXfcqbi9FRNjmEZvL9f0va_L4BvJPQt68n2u5SkKEckXE_QcYgCVq3MahR0y3YFBZp01g4QoMm9a5Ld5UCxF0zEk4Wdqm/s1600/Thomas_Hemy_Sunderland_v_Aston_Villa_1895_A_Corner_Kick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X4ndSlBxpA9FOP6zR44L6JYMCSRG3OpCxOq321jY8nhqvEblXfcqbi9FRNjmEZvL9f0va_L4BvJPQt68n2u5SkKEckXE_QcYgCVq3MahR0y3YFBZp01g4QoMm9a5Ld5UCxF0zEk4Wdqm/s640/Thomas_Hemy_Sunderland_v_Aston_Villa_1895_A_Corner_Kick.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One
of the greatest things about football is that no one can claim to own it,
though many have tried. All you need to play some form of the game is the
ability to stay upright and a loose object to kick. It is probably as old as
language or music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was certainly played in Britain in a
relatively organised fashion throughout the Middle Ages by all classes. Then in
Victorian times there was a step change in the evolution of the game: what was
clearly a widespread, “folk” or children’s game in the early part of the
century started to be codified in several places at once. Several things led to
this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One was the increase in demand for education
both in the public school system and for the masses. One of the dilemmas for
the advocates of “muscular Christianity” was what to do to keep adolescent boys
from their vices and in particular the scourge of “self-pollution,” something
which seems to have worried our forefathers inordinately. Vigorous outdoor
sport was seen as a means of teaching discipline, morality (through a sense of
fair play), and of tiring boys out physically so that when they went to bed
they would sleep. (For a more detailed exposition of these ideas see David
Winner’s <i>Those Feet</i>, 2005.) When the 1870 Education Act made education
universal, sport was taken up within Board schools as a means of improving the
health of the working classes, who were causing employers concern because
unhealthy slum living (and unhealthy acts) were creating physically incapable
workers for their mills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">A second factor was the increase in leisure time
created by improved standards of living. The middle classes had enough time for
regular pastimes and the working classes could afford to take time off to watch
if not play – unofficially through traditions like honouring “Saint Monday” in
Sheffield (unapproved absences from work on Mondays) or through the eventual
right, obtained through the 1850 Factories Act, to Saturday afternoons off
work, which slowly displaced the Monday habit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Improved mobility through the railways meant
that teams not from the same district or institution could play each other –
and how would they do that if they had different rules?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Also a natural Victorian British desire to
impose order undoubtedly came into play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The fact that different codes sprang up was one
of the seeds of a later class struggle sown in the early modern game. The
public schools in the south of England and Cambridge University played their
own versions of football and naturally, given their desire for order, imposed
rules. These men were the country’s elite and laid claim the game as of
birth-right. “The game of football, as originally played at the Wall at Eton,
was the author of every sort and condition of football now played throughout
the United Kingdom,” wrote someone in <i>The Etonian</i> in 1884. This myth
that football was handed down from the public schools persisted and infected
the game. (There is an ongoing, somewhat esoteric debate in academic circles as
to who can claim the birthright of the modern game – the public schools or ordinary
people (for example: Adrian Harvey: <i>Football: the First Hundred Years, The
Untold Story</i>, 2005, and Graham Curry and Eric Dunning: <i>Association
Football: A Study in Figurational Sociology</i>, 2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4C49GGydI_GhJeKgGALJIpHKkbDlFCnRPCefdteIBNPvBEhgH2u4M6VpRELt7FhhhzfW0ntqso_mwGqF1c0YihIuK88uNG7iT97WZuGAJVc6TEn3I76Gv5Ej40g_ian4K80vk0MQ1zH45/s1600/swifts+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4C49GGydI_GhJeKgGALJIpHKkbDlFCnRPCefdteIBNPvBEhgH2u4M6VpRELt7FhhhzfW0ntqso_mwGqF1c0YihIuK88uNG7iT97WZuGAJVc6TEn3I76Gv5Ej40g_ian4K80vk0MQ1zH45/s320/swifts+%25282%2529.jpg" width="170" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">History is the account written by the powerful,
whereas the working class footballers of the time let their boots do the
talking, the fans doing theirs in the pubs afterwards. As a result their voices
are few and far between. The football played on village greens, and that in the
streets and backyards by generations of children would not have been written
about. There are some accounts of matches outside of the public schools, often
the newsworthy ones at holiday times and the traditional Shrove Tuesday games.
(For example, it was worthy of note in Derby in 1848, because of attempts to
ban it and the locals ignoring their betters: the military were called and the
Riot Act read.) In this sense the public schools can only be said to have
codified the popular game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">You also cannot ignore the fact that the first strong
footballing sub-culture took off in Sheffield following the establishment of
the Sheffield club of 1857. This club also drew up rules not long after those
in the public schools. Sheffield Club was set up by young men from Sheffield’s
higher classes: largely ex-pupils of Sheffield’s best school, the Collegiate
(now King Edward VII comprehensive school), who drew on their experiences of
versions of the game, probably those they grew up with in the district, as well
as drawing on what they knew of the public school games.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Football Association was founded in 1863
largely as an association of a handful of London clubs that set out to draw up
an agreed set of rules. They were not uniquely ex-public school men so felt no
strong bond of allegiance to any one set of rules. Also the Sheffield Club
appeared to have sent observers to inaugural meetings. There was communication
between Sheffield and London, and they played against each other. The strength
of the Sheffield game was certainly a key influence over the FA in those early
years, as was an increasingly critical mass of footballers in London (but
neither were playing according to the nascent FA rules). In 1877 a single set
of rules for the game was finally agreed, a synthesis of the Sheffield rules
and that grew out of Cambridge and the public school versions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There remained, though, this tension: that the
game meant different things to different classes. This increased as the game
took off and got worse as football finances became important: money was needed
to run clubs, buy kit, develop grounds etc. Spectators with leisure time were
willing to pay to watch, but, to continue to draw in spectators, there was
competition to attract the best players. The issue of professionalism came to
the fore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The “old boys” clubs saw paying players as
dirtying <i>their</i> sport – contaminating their moral purity. Beardshaw of
the Sheffield Club said that “Professionalism in football is an evil, and as
such should be suppressed” – little more than rank snobbery (though later he
had live with it as a Sheffield United committee member).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Some of the attitudes of the higher classes are
best revealed by looking at early fiction: literature being almost exclusively
their domain at the time. I recently published a collection called <i>Historical
Football</i> <i>Stories</i> taken in part from an earlier collection written at
the end of Victorian era. I believe these to be the oldest football stories in
existence. Fiction can provide better insights into some aspects of life than
factual accounts, particularly emotional life. The curse of professionalism is
a recurrent obsession in these stories. For example, in <i>An International
Proxy</i> we read: “He was an amateur to his finger-tips. The association
of money with sport was abhorrent to him. He was an opponent of the League
system because it drew an invidious distinction between “League matches” and
“friendly matches” — as if they were not all friendly!” Then in <i>A
Matter of Luck</i>: “ ‘I like you Jack,’ he said, ‘and Nell loves you, but
I can’t give my lass to one who makes his play his work. If you wish to win her
you must give up soccer… ’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Amateurs saw money as distorting the game in
other ways. When penalties were introduced in 1891, it was claimed to be an
effect of professionalism — of those who had not “imbibed the sporting spirit
of the game at school” (i.e. public school). The famous amateur C B Fry said
“It is a standing insult to sportsmen to have to play under a rule which
assumes that players intend to trip, hack, and push their opponents and to behave
like cads of the most unscrupulous kind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdWDJbNMyfqZnDM_afK3EJGc7N3FSN3xVXToHtAjwZXW7za1qAzaGaozVkWSg0IrIZMn8kKBjTwkoaDIRIvJkIa4iMMyepY2nQmFq6vzWRc82U1U4cirnC6sAXWOwVNxBHn-WHAvvcmKl/s1600/jack+kelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdWDJbNMyfqZnDM_afK3EJGc7N3FSN3xVXToHtAjwZXW7za1qAzaGaozVkWSg0IrIZMn8kKBjTwkoaDIRIvJkIa4iMMyepY2nQmFq6vzWRc82U1U4cirnC6sAXWOwVNxBHn-WHAvvcmKl/s200/jack+kelly.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jack Kelly: ' yankee oik'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Amateur Rowing Association, custodians of a
sport even harder for oiks to break in to, kept a tighter hold: their rules
excluded, not only anyone in receipt of payment for rowing, but also anyone who
had been by trade or employment a “mechanic, artisan, or labourer or engaged in
any menial duty.” Even up to 1920 rowing banned Olympic gold medallist Jack
Kelly from Henley because he had once earned money as a bricklayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The middle and upper classes did not like their
loosening grip on power in the domain of football any more than they did in the
political one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The rugby version of the early game had split
away following the codification by the FA over an argument over the legality of
“tripping and hacking.” The association game could have split again in 1884/5
over professionalism. The “old boys” at the FA initially tried to resist,
Canute-like, and threw Preston out of the Cup for fielding professionals – this
nearly led to a breakaway “British Football Association,” but to everyone’s
credit they drew back from the brink. Instead the FA tried to regulate
professionalism by placing additional restrictions on the ability of
professionals to participate in competitions, for example, based on two years
residence within six miles of the ground, and banning them from any football
administration role. The professionals were to be treated like servants to
their club committee masters. There was one rule for amateurs, one for
professionals. For example, when England faced Ireland in Belfast in 1888, the
amateurs Lindley and Walters refused either to travel on the same boat or stay
in the same hotel as the professionals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The response of the gentleman-players was to
largely reject football and seek refuge in the unsullied game of rugby, and an
ultimately failed attempt to set up a rival Amateur FA. Another response was
the setting up of the Corinthians in 1883 – to try to uphold the ideals of
amateurism. It was in truth “sham amateurism” – they demanded and obtained financial
guarantees to play friendly matches, didn’t publish balance sheets, and handed
out lavish expenses to playing members who were believed to earn more than
professionals, in addition to their independent means. They competed for a
while because they had learnt and practised the game through school and
Oxbridge, were better fed, housed and protected by medical advice.
Professionals soon overtook them, but nevertheless, the FA continued to give
them a bye to the third round of the FA Cup as late as the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0qGCFb6ZxL4-zp3nuz3sXHu4GXS5P686WJi45UaX250QWYiyXEm-GV8j2SnKoKMBnPlzum3U44wE5N-bN6hWEcGxKL3tdE47ooy7w_TkLeevCk5Y0F2IB8GEuT0yrPJhvMMYkXlPzL6B/s1600/s08480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0qGCFb6ZxL4-zp3nuz3sXHu4GXS5P686WJi45UaX250QWYiyXEm-GV8j2SnKoKMBnPlzum3U44wE5N-bN6hWEcGxKL3tdE47ooy7w_TkLeevCk5Y0F2IB8GEuT0yrPJhvMMYkXlPzL6B/s200/s08480.jpg" width="161" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Needham</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The other side of the story, that of the working
class footballer is rare for the reasons previously stated. One exception was
Ernest Needham of Sheffield United and England – one of the few working class
men whose voice was heard: he wrote a book in 1901, simply entitled, <i>Association
Football</i>. He strongly </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">defended the right to earn a living from the game:
“Would that all could play for love, and be the perfect gentleman on and off
the field, as so many of my amateur friends are.” He talked of: “the advantage
to the style of the game, and the necessity for paying those who devote
themselves to its improvement. I might claim for payment of players all the
arguments in favour of the payment of Members of Parliament. To play the game
scientifically a man must bring to it a mind free from fear of personal or
family difficulty in case of disablement or retirement and only substantial pay
will guarantee this.” (Needham earned about £5 per week at that time, just over
twice the pay of an ordinary working man — which gives you an idea what he
meant by substantial.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another obsession of the middle classes comes
through in <i>Historical Football Stories</i> – that of gambling. The Victorian
amateurs often raised this demon in arguments against professionalism. The
middle classes were in fear of the depraved lower classes, their lack of
morality, and this leading to riotous behaviour and a threat to order and
security of property. Sport was encouraged as a way of counteracting vice. So
to see money as the motivator was anathema — and then to see large riotous
crowds assembling and betting on the outcome was abhorrent. Needham dismisses
this. He says: “We hear a lot of talk about betting at football matches. Some
people given over strongly to romancing have likened the game to the racecourse
— with bookmakers and all their paraphernalia. Such highly spiced tales are
nonsense. Betting there is, but it is done more or less secretly; and once let
the delinquents come within the clutches of the officials of any club, let
alone the police, and I will vouchsafe a bad quarter of an hour for them. Any
sane person who attends matches knows that betting is not allowed openly and it
is only so asserted by those who decry the pastime.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another aspect of the early game shown by <i>Historical
Football Stories</i> is its physicality. Early football was far more brutal and
dangerous than the modern game. By the late 1890s, ten years into the League
structuring of the game, the rules were largely as they are now, partly in
response to an understanding that the game needed to improve its safety record.
Hacking, tripping, jumping at a player and charging from behind were not
allowed. The main differences in risk were probably down to factors such as
interpretation by referees, equipment and condition of pitches: matches were
almost never abandoned unless fog was so dense that neither the spectators nor,
more to the point, referees could see whether the ball had gone in the net.
Frozen pitches, mud, hale, snow etc, were not reasons to call games off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsNkWtgBskLGQee3DFbFcpd2gM6_aWhZJUaZQcTvzF6bOpCMLjezTRXDhVNhL7oOiBzkeNVrm2J_IPwGlSTYnFsVj-wVZGpyQhl2lG9DLTchAI9acIDTSqEZ1n1gw2NUj-sJMwvFUQEEK/s1600/referee+ambulance+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsNkWtgBskLGQee3DFbFcpd2gM6_aWhZJUaZQcTvzF6bOpCMLjezTRXDhVNhL7oOiBzkeNVrm2J_IPwGlSTYnFsVj-wVZGpyQhl2lG9DLTchAI9acIDTSqEZ1n1gw2NUj-sJMwvFUQEEK/s1600/referee+ambulance+%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The physicality of the game provided different
responses in Victorian society. They upheld virtues of manliness and codified
aggression that sport provided — as can be seen in the stories by players
continuing despite broken bones. This is as common a theme as that of bribery
in these stories. A player playing on with a broken collar bone was something
to be admired — and this was not just a fictional device. In those days
substitutes were not allowed, so there are frequent accounts in contemporary
match reports of bloody and broken players playing on. (Can modern players who
roll about in agony at the slightest touch please take note?) The physicality
of the game was, however, something that provoked feelings of horror amongst
some in society; particularly the idea of working class men being violent — how
could you possibly trust them to be aggressive with chivalry, like a gentleman?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> There
are arguments that these class prejudices continue to afflict British football
right through to the modern era. This amateur belief that talent is inherent,
and that learning of skills from an early age, techniques, and all the myriad
of minor improvements that go towards building success (diet, kinetics etc.)
are somehow akin to cheating or an excuse for insufficient pluck, and best left
to “Johnny Foreigner.” An approach that has clearly worked well… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bibliography<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">David
Winner, <i>Those Feet</i>, 2005<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Richard
Sanders, <i>Beastly Fury</i>, 2009<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Adrian
Harvey, <i>Football The First Hundred Years</i>, 2005<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Graham
Curry and Eric Dunning, <i>Association Football: A Study in Figurational
Sociology</i>, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ernest
Needham, <i>Association Football</i>, 1901<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Frederick
Wall, <i>50 Years of Football</i>, 1884-1934, 1934<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">JAH
Catton, <i>The Story of Association Football</i>, 1926<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Percy
M Young, <i>Football in Sheffield</i>, 1981<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Percy
M Young, <i>A History of British Football</i>, 1973<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">James
Walvin, <i>The People’s Game</i>, 1994<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Graham
Curry, <i>Football Spectatorship in mid-to-late Victorian Sheffield</i>, Soccer
and Society, Vol 8, No.2/3 2007<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Steven Kay, ed., <i>Historical Football Stories</i>,
2015</span></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-24836587605355821592015-06-15T10:59:00.001-07:002015-09-01T06:49:49.686-07:00Calling all writers - short stories wanted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">I am looking for help from writers in putting together a collection of short stories as a
charity fundraiser for the charity ‘War Child.’ I have collected eight stories
which are in various stages of draft (5 of mine and 3 written by a friend). A
version of one of them is up on this blog <a href="http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/side-by-side-short-story-first.html" target="_blank">here</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">So far all
the stories have a 1st World War or 2nd World War theme, (but there’s no reason
it couldn’t extend beyond that to other conflicts – that was just our cultural
perspective). They are all about people reflecting on war or affected by it (I
am not interested in anything glorifying war or violence though). I would love
to collect stories from different cultural perspectives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">The rules
are: they must start with “Joe stepped off the train and held the package close
to his side” (or “Jo stepped off the train and held the package close to her
side,” or using a similar name – I don’t want to close off other cultures by
restricting it to European-centric names). I’d like to keep them quite short –
up to about 2000 words long, but it is quality that counts, so I won't rule anything out on length - a story is as long as it needs to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">Because it’s
for charity I can’t pay you for them, but I’d do my best to give you a plug. I can’t
promise your work will get in, but if I can see it working, even if it's not quite what I was after, I will look to work with you in editing. But, that said, I don't want to teach granny to suck eggs, and I accept I am no expert.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">Look forward
to your ideas. The easiest way to get in touch would be via Twitter:
@stevek1889.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: #FEFEFE; color: #555555;">Thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-91741586998769839202015-05-14T14:35:00.002-07:002022-03-15T14:04:01.688-07:00How Michael Doyle kept me awake last night<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I
listened to Michael Doyle’s interview ( <a href="http://bit.ly/1IBl5ca">http://bit.ly/1IBl5ca</a>) in the evening and when in the night I
couldn’t sleep it was this my mind turned to. At 3 in the morning my mind often
focuses on something unresolved, without me being able to stop it. Something
here was troubling me deeply – it’s often a sign that I need to get my pen out
– it was clear what is was – it all seemed so cheap and dirty. Here was our
captain, our longest serving player by far with 217 appearances, being booted
out by the back door. No official word from the club, no message of thanks, no
final appearance for the fans to say thank you, like when Monty left and walked
round the pitch – nothing. It is not the United way. It has sickened me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Michael Doyle was squeezed out slowly – like a
victim of bullying in the workplace – when you turn up and find yourself
marginalised and given less favourable jobs and no-one remembers to invite you
to the pub. The arm-band went to Brayford, and he was benched in favour of the
less-than-impressive Coutts. Then in the play-offs, when he could have
contributed, he was left out. Even when Brayford went off at half-time in the
first leg and Basham dropped back to centre-back, the natural replacement in
midfield was Doyle to stabilise, contain and organise the midfield.
But no, Clough brought on the lightweight Scougall instead. It was a mistake,
Basham was sorely missed in midfield in the second half and the replacement was
inadequate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">With Brayford sidelined bringing on a leader for the
second leg was surely the wise move – but Doyle stayed on the bench. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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At 3.10 a.m. I
then moved on to the “why?” Clough clearly tried to sideline Doyle (along with
Collins) at the start of the season – no appearance in the first two league games
for either. It was baffling and, as an experiment, failed – they were the
experienced spine of the team. You felt he only brought them back reluctantly.
Collins he got rid of at the first opportunity. With Doyle he waited a bit
longer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is bewildering for
us fans to work out what goes on behind the scenes – what the mood in the
dressing room is like. We can only speculate
based on what we see on the field and read between the lines of
set-piece interviews. Clough criticises fans who have a go – “that’s why we<span style="text-indent: 18.9333px;">’</span>re
here and they’re in the stand,” he said, or words to that effect. But we’re not
stupid. We know Collins was not dropped because an analysis of the game showed
he was defending too deep or whatever it was. The solution to that is to
practice defending less deep in training surely, not to play a small right back
in the middle. Most of us fans couldn’t see what he was on about. Of course
Collins, like Doyle was not perfect, but over the seasons we’d seen him progress
and come to appreciate his commitment and the way he helped bring on Maguire.
Nothing had changed out on the pitch. Then it was a “calf-strain” keeping him
out. Then he was loaned out at a time when we had no recognised centre-back –
when we really needed him, it seemed – when we were vulnerable to corners and
set-pieces and his height and experience would have counted. Instead Clough
preferred to play at centre back a 5’8” right-back whose strength was in
forward runs. (And God only knows what happened with Butler – we only saw him
once to my recollection.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Clough said in an
interview that players who weren’t prepared to give their all weren’t part of
his plans – this seemed a reference to Collins and Campbell-Rice, and possibly
others. But you couldn’t say that of Michael Doyle. He was not the most
talented of midfielders to pull on a Blades shirt – but his effect on a game
was often lost on many fans I believe, because he got on with things quietly –
breaking down play, motivating and making room for others to do their thing –
like Kevin MacDonald. Doyle clearly loved the club and always gave his all and
for me that goes a long way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The way he has
been treated really disturbs me. What does it say about Clough’s
man-management? In management you don’t let differences of personality get in the
way of greater team goals.<br />
You have got to fear that what has happened suggests
something is wrong with team coherence. At the very least Clough does not seem
skilled at taking pressure off players to allow them to play without fear.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Why does he slag
off McNulty when strikers surely feed off confidence? Some may respond to
criticism, but why do it in public – what does that achieve? And, even if you
are of the school that a boot up the backside is needed sometimes instead of
wise words and an arm round the shoulder, why publicly criticise him at the end
of the season when he cannot go out on the training ground and put it right,
and then prove himself in a game? <o:p></o:p></div>
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I wanted Brian
Robson out from the moment he started criticising Chris Morgan – saying
he wasn’t good enough on the radio. Morgan was more a Blade than Robson could
ever have been – for so many years the heart and soul of the team. You attack
him, you attack everyone – that’s how it seemed to the man on the terrace.</div>
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I don’t know what the conclusion is. Do I trust Clough?
Not yet. I really want to believe in him. He usually comes across well in interviews and in his programme notes. Some
may see his interviews as excuses, but often he reads what happened well: perhaps he’s better at hindsight than foresight. The style of play? For me
winning is more important than the style – at least for now – just get us out
of this hell that is League 1! I confess to having liked Kevin Blackwell – I
liked a team that was tough to break down and he had to manage, and did it
well, with dramatically declining resources: our demotion coming at the time of
the property crash didn’t help. Clough’s team has been too easy to beat – close
them down, rough them up a bit, use
quick breaks, corners and set-pieces. That must stop.</div>
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I am putting my trust in the McCabes and Jim Phipps to do the right thing – whatever
that is and I will support them in their decision. Kevin McCabe rescued this
club, and the McCabes are true Blades and can be relied on to put the long-term
interests of the club first, of that I have no doubt. Fans have always been too
quick to criticise others for not spending money they haven’t got. Jim Phipps I
have been impressed by (as with Selahattin Baki) – the evidence is that they
“get it.”</div>
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We are the most under-performing club in the country – if
you compare gates to trophies. There is no one alive who remembers the last
time we won anything (unless you count the Division 4 title). That must change
one day – we have had more than our share of disappointment.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, good luck Michael
Doyle – we appreciate what you have done – even if the official channels won’t
say it – and your Cockney walk will stay in our hearts forever. A true Blade.
You are guaranteed an ovation if you come back to the Lane. And at least we can
be fairly comfortable in knowing you won’t score against us – though knowing
our luck…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-81250623523030204082015-05-10T02:51:00.001-07:002019-11-17T05:59:17.075-08:00Historical Football Stories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This is my new e-book, available at: </span><a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://amzn.to/1EruiMS" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/6qM8c6n0KX" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #b3001e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.259999990463257px; line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="http://amzn.to/1EruiMS"><span class="js-display-url">amzn.to/1EruiMS</span><span class="invisible" style="line-height: 0;"></span><span class="tco-ellipsis"><span class="invisible" style="line-height: 0;"> </span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.259999990463257px; line-height: 32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div class="first" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> So far as I am aware these
stories are the earliest football stories known.</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Most of them were first published in a book called </span><i style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Twenty Five Football Stories</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">in 1908 by George Newnes, who published the</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Strand
Magazine</i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, an illustrated monthly magazine of stories, topical articles, and
trivia, best known for first publishing the Sherlock Holmes stories. The
collection was actually 14 association football and 11 rugby union stories:
back then, when the codes were still quite novel, less of a distinction was
made. For this collection I have just published the association football ones
(rugby being to me something very different and alien — coming from Sheffield
where we have no strong tradition of either rugby union or rugby league).</span></div>
<div class="first" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"> The collection includes an early P G Wodehouse story: <i>Petticoat Influence </i>- a story told from the point of view of a female Bertie Wooster type. Typical Wodehouse humour comes through.</span></div>
<div class="first" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"> There are also four new stories: three of mine and one by Niall Kennedy, a Partick Thistle historian.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I first came
across these stories when researching my novel<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Evergreen in red and white.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>I wanted to get a feel for how
football was perceived outside of the newspaper match reports, and fiction can
provide a better insight into some aspects of life than factual accounts:
particularly emotional life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> These stories provide huge insights into the
obsessions of a certain class, with regards football, at the end of the 19th
century. As history is the account written by the powerful, so these stories
are football as told by the literate middle classes, and so should be read in context. The working class
footballers of the time let their boots do the talking and fans did their
talking in the pub afterwards — consequently, their voices are few and far
between.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> I'd love to hear what people reckon to them.</span></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-34490614069916228152015-05-03T08:40:00.001-07:002015-08-30T06:35:20.667-07:00Review of Stone Cradle by Louise Doughty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Stone Cradle is a book that makes me want to give up
writing. It is as near perfect as writing can get, and makes me question
whether I can ever get even half-way as good.</div>
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I read quite
analytically these days – all too often I spot the strings on the puppets or
the hand of the puppeteer, or their bald head poking up. But Stone Cradle is
flawless – all I could do was stand in awe of the writer’s skill and get
carried away with the story. It’s one of those books I want to buy for everyone
I know.</div>
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There are two main
points of view – Clementina and Rose. It is not that they are unreliable
narrators, to use the jargon – both tell different aspects to the story and
though their accounts are often contrary you find yourself empathising with and
believing the credibility of both.</div>
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The research
behind it is thorough – so much so that most readers probably won’t realise the
hours that went into constructing the story, brick by brick – it all seems to
flow so effortlessly.</div>
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The novel
captures superbly a core truth about families: their strifes, misunderstandings,
loves and missed opportunities.</div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I don’t like giving stars to books – they all
have their own merits and many deserve reading for different reasons, but I
have no hesitation with this – it is one of the best novels I have read in
years – Booker winners and classics of English Literature included.</span></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-9054232087299588682015-04-08T15:10:00.000-07:002015-08-30T06:26:31.491-07:00How to insert pictures to a MOBI file using Notepad++ and Calibre<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This post complements the one on Indie-publishing on a Shoestring at: <a href="http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/indie-publishing-on-shoestring-how-to.html">http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/indie-publishing-on-shoestring-how-to.html</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had struggled to work out how to do it until I found a YouTube video by a
lovely guy called Lindsay Woolcott who describes how to build a website using
Notepad ++. It is using these same techniques that you can add images to your
MOBI file for producing a professional Kindle file. Lindsay’s video is at:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOEYk05LrbQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOEYk05LrbQ</a> , but
I’ll describe here how it’s done for an e-book file – with you keeping control
over the layout and formatting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
first thing to do is set up a new folder in Windows Explorer or whatever you
use. Save the HTML file of your book, created using Notepad++ to this new
folder. This is what it will look like:</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The sub folder within this folder is for the saved MOBI files from Calibre.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This
is what I did for my book, Spirit of Old Essex – a compilation of Arthur Morrison work.
You save all the images you want to use to this file. You need to name each of
them distinctly. I chose essex1, essex2 etc. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The
next step is to insert the following instruction into your Notepad++ document at the point you want each image to appear: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<img src="essex1.jpg" width=100%
alt="Cunning Murell's cottage" /></div>
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Obviously
yours will be named “image1.jpg” or “image1.png” or whatever you decide to call
them. </div>
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The alt= bit is the description of what the image is. I don't know how important it is to get this right.</div>
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Then when you 'save,' the new HTML file magically picks up the images from
your folder. I still can’t quite get over how it does this but it is very
clever. If you want to vary the image size try experimenting with the percentage shown. Also if you want a space after the image you can add a break: <br/> at the end of the line and it puts in a line of space.</div>
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This is what my Notepad++ screenshot looks like with the pictures inserted:</div>
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You can also use it to insert little vignettes at the chapter ends,
like they had in old books – though, personally, I’d go easy on this sort of
thing – it won’t make your writing any better.<span style="font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-40219431587629174922015-03-14T14:50:00.000-07:002015-08-30T06:44:50.797-07:00Starting to Frame by Roger Gordon - a memoir<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’ll start off with what this book is not. It is
not some slick, ghost-written, celebrity memoir, much of which you suspect is
embellished and re-imagined to make the celebrity look good. What you get with <i>Starting
to Frame</i> is an account of the life of an ordinary bloke (I mean that in a
good way) – but that is what makes it special.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roger Gordon (“Soft Ayperth”
to give him his ‘Sheffield Forum’ moniker) tells the story of his upbringing in
the late 40s, 50s, and 60s, in a working-class/aspiring middle-class family. It
contains elements that many Sheffielders will recognise, and I think anyone who
lived through those years will enjoy the trip down memory lane. For younger
readers the interest will be sociological: a description of the world their parents
or grandparents grew up in during the post-war years. (It is a factual account
that complements the Brian Sellars novels reviewed in my Sheffield novels blog
post.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Every memoir is, to an
extent, a work of fiction, and I even debated with myself whether I should put
this review in with Sheffield novels – the very fact it contains dialogue gives
it a fictional element, but there is no doubting that this adds to the truth
and honest telling of those events. As I have written elsewhere, fiction is often
is a closer representation of the truth than a ‘factual’ account. Like a novel,
this is a well-rounded story, not just a stringing together of life events. Roger
Gordon tells the tale of a tough, but in many ways not uncommon, childhood. The
story of a dysfunctional family – but are fully-functional families the exception
anyway? He openly describes bouts of mental illness which he continued to live
with throughout his adult life. These led to short periods of hospitalisation,
but the illness didn’t stop him pursuing a very successful academic career and
fulfilling life. As he says: “I have learned to face these setbacks as one
would any recurrent medical condition – a strep throat, sinus infection or a
sore bowel. Something that is hard-wired into my genome, as the lives of my
parents attest to. Definitely not a personality flaw.” This openness about
mental illness is a very positive thing and can only contribute to the drive to
change attitudes such as the Mind/ Rethink Mental Illness “Time to Change”
campaign seeks to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">This book is indie-published,
something which makes it an even greater achievement in my view. It is
therefore not as slick a piece of work as if it had been through the commercial
route. It is, however, well written (you’d expect a retired university
professor to be able to string a couple of sentences together). It could be
said the little flaws just lend to its authenticity. The book is professionally
produced and typeset, and it probably takes a pedant like me to even think: “it
would have been a bit better if…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another interesting
aspect is that Roger moved to Canada in his late twenties to only return
occasionally thereafter. That detachment enables him to write about his Sheffield
years in a special way – looking, not only back in time, but also from a
different world. He uses dialect in the dialogue, but also explains things for
a North American audience, things that it wouldn’t have struck me to explain. He
remembers things as they were, but slips in words like “recess” for “school
playtime/break” and uses “jock” in the context of a sporty kid at school. It
just adds to the charm. The title, <i>Starting to Frame,</i> uses the verb ‘frame’
in a way I have not heard recently – not since I was told “Come on! Frame, lad!”
– as in buck your ideas up.</span></div>
<div class="normal" style="text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 19.85pt;">I saw a copy of this
book at Sheffield Scene on Surrey Street the other day, so you can buy a copy
of it locally. It is also available through Amazon. It would be interesting to
see what other people think of it.</span></div>
</div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-55913147659074911342015-03-06T07:46:00.000-08:002015-08-30T06:36:14.082-07:00My (failed :-( )bid to represent the Blades at Wembley at the FA Cup<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is my entry for the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Songs of Praise</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>competition for the fans "Abide with Me" choir. They wanted stories that reflect the personal memories and passion of the cup. In 300 words they were after something that would be judged on the following criteria:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Uplifting/ illuminating/ exciting/ original/ demonstrates a different perspective/ unusual, quirky and imaginative/ demonstrates genuine fandom for their team<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">- not much to ask then! At least they weren’t to be judging my singing ability!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b>Christmas 2013 over. Up for work in the dark, home in the
dark, a long haul to summer, the Blades stagnating just above the relegation
zone in League 1. What better than to book a family holiday in Spain for Easter
week? Quick look at the fixture list: only Oldham away. Sorted.</b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;">
<b> After
clearing Colchester and Cambridge in rounds 1 and 2, the Villa were going to
knock us out the following Saturday:
concentrate on the League. Instead, we won – in style.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 22.7pt;">
<b>The Blades dropped to second bottom; still, we
bettered Fulham – then Forest. We out-classed Charlton to get to Wembley – when
we were in Spain!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 22.7pt;">
<b>Nigel Clough said: “You go to the seaside for a day
out, you go to Wembley to win.” Sheffield United and 32,500 (minus two) went to
Wembley. We went to the seaside. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;">
<b>Me and my son, incongruous in our red and white in
the Spanish sun, elsewhere in spirit, sat with ice creams (vanilla and
strawberry – what else?), and took a selfie. We were comforted by finding a
bar, owned by an expat Blade, screening the match. Beautiful signed shirts on
the walls. So long as they aren’t humiliated, I said. They were not. For
forty-five minutes Hull were out-played.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 22.7pt;">
<b>More San Miguel, more lemonade. Dare we even dream
after 89 years of hurt? Then Steve Bruce changed his team around and they took
the game to us.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;">
<b>We still regard Stephen Quinn as one of us. When he
came on it felt like an omen – Fate’s
wheel turning. Quinny is barely five feet six in his studs, but rose for that
header like a giant, to break our hearts. We walked back to the beach; that
feeling of bitter disappointment and pride that only football and the magic of
the Cup can bring.</b></div>
</div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-79712329778900819662015-02-05T10:56:00.000-08:002015-02-05T10:56:53.103-08:00Nick's Game - a short story by Mark J Howard<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>I first read this story on the writing website: YouWriteOn. It is a superb story. The author, Mark J Howard has kindly given me permission to share it. Take just 5 minutes out to tread it - you won't regret it. Mark is a currently homeless and does all his writing on an old BlackBerry phone! Inspiring! An interview with Mark follows.</i></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">Mornin,’ Father.
Whoa! No need to panic – I don’t mean you no harm. The knife ain’t for you.
Come over here an’ sit down.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Guess you’re wondering why I’m here so late,
with dawn mass finishing an hour ago. Truth is I was waiting for everyone to
leave, hid under the pews while you was locking up so it’s just you an’ me.
Real cosy, like. I need to say some things to you, Father, and it’ll be truth,
every word. I swear it on that big fancy Bible you got over there. Swear to him
up on that cross.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Don’t fuck me about, just sit down and listen.
Your breakfast can wait, okay? That’s better.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">You heard of Nick Malvagio? He’s a big-time hood
operates out of Queens: Astoria, I think, up by the Hell Gate. Got his fingers
in lotsa nasty little pies, knows just about everyone decent folk don’t wanna
know. He’s kinda connected, too. Knocks around with some real bad men, does
Nick, real bad men. Yeah, I see you’ve heard of him. Thought you might have.
Him nailed up there, he knows the guy too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I’m not a bad man, Father, not as a rule. I’m a
card player and I’m a damned good one. It’s how I pay the rent, run the Honda
and spend a couple of weeks a year back home in Maine. I know the secret, see?
The Golden Rule: don’t be greedy. Greed’s a sin. But I guess you know that, considering
where we are, with that poor schlep looking down on us. More than a sin,
though, greed can get you killed. Or worse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Sometimes the art of winning is knowing when to
lose. My old pa’ used to say you can shear a sheep many times, but you can only
skin it once. You play smart, you can make a decent living; you play dumb, you
end up with less than nothing. I seen it. I know.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">You gotta know when to walk away. Know when to
fold, see? It don’t matter what hand you got – sometimes it’s best not to play
it. Some guys, though, guys like Nick Malvagio, they don’t see it that way.
They don’t respect the secret like I do.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He knows it too, poor bastard. Tried to do a bit
of good but played his hand wrong, skinned the wrong sheep so they nailed him
up. Son o’ God he may be but my guess is he’s a lousy card player.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Don’t look at me like that, it ain’t blasphemy
to say so.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I was looking for a game, see? Things’ve been
quiet for a stretch, just low level shit. Couple of tourists and some frat
boys, nothing challenging. Nothing lucrative. I was itching for some real
action, looking to win me a bit of cream, enough for a new TV since my old one
went on the fritz.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I thought Lenny would know of a game, Lenny
Doyle from the betting shop in Hollister’s basement. I don’t do the horses, too
much blind chance involved for my taste, but Lenny knows every card game going
and spills for bucks. The better the game, the more he charges for the skinny.
He’s a cranky bastard, too. You gotta know how to approach him. You come at him
straight and he’ll flip, like he’s scared you’re wired or something. Not that
the cops’d ever be interested in the little runt, I shouldn’t think. Lenny’s a
minnow with a set of plastic piranha teeth and he’s a pain in the ass but his
information’s always good.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He’s reading the paper as I walk in, bent under
one of the lights in the gloomy basement, all outrage and morality. I say hello
to few faces and grab an awful coffee from the vending machine before going
over and saying hi.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He ignores me, a good sign, and then starts
jabbering on about how the city’s all gone to rack an’ ruin and how there’s no
respect any more. He’s got a burger in one hand and a joint in the other and
carries on talking where most polite people would be chewing. Grease stains all
over the place, messy bastard, and I don’t think he even knows what shampoo is.
In no time, there’s nothing left of the burger except for the ketchup stains
down the front of his crummy Hawaiian shirt and the stink of processed cheese
on his breath. Lenny makes some fair scratch out o’ me, out of lots o’ people,
beats me why he’s such a bum. Camouflage, I guess.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He finally looks at me and stabs his finger at
the front page of his newspaper, leaving greasy smudges all over the photo of a
dark-eyed hero cop being buried today. I’d heard about it on the Honda’s radio.
The cop, Carver or Curtis or something, was a big blue superstar from the 49th
precinct. Charmed life, lotsa big busts. On his way to the top, they said,
until he ran into half a dozen dum-dums tryin’ to bust a sex-slave ring
operatin’ outta some old cemetery, of all places.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Lenny goes on for a bit, language not suitable
for <i>these</i> surroundings, but you’ve gotta let him get on with it and nod
like you give a shit. Twenty minutes, fifty bucks and a fifteen percent
kickback on any winnings later, I’m on my way to a warehouse on Twenty First
Street, over by the Triboro Bridge.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">It’s a cold night out, but that Honda’s got a
real good heater, I mean, real good. It’s like there’s a nuclear pile in there
or something, so I don’t notice the frost until I find the warehouse and park
up. There’s a cold wind blowing and the warehouse don’t look like the cosiest
of places, full of cracks and holes. I nearly don’t go in. Nearly call it a
night and go home to my warm apartment, watch a bit of TV. But the TV’s on the
blink, so what the hell, right?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">There’s a couple of guys inside the door, all
steroids and fake commando, muscles like cats in a stocking leg. The kind of
guys who can crack walnuts with their ears, the kind of guys certain other
kinds of guys like to call security. It’s nothing new to me, lotsa people like
to keep the low-life outta their games. I just tell ’em Lenny sent me and they
check me out using CIA-style mikes and earpieces. Nice touch, I think, a little
OTT maybe but hey, we live in uncertain times, right?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">They let me in like they’re disappointed,
itching to turn some poor chump away and slap him if he argues. Keen to show
the boss how tough they are, to prove themselves worthy of being more than just
doormen. Miserable apes, they got no idea they’ll never be anything more in
this life or the next.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The warehouse is full of crates with Chinese
writing on them and smells of pepper, old newspapers and wet matches. It’s cold
inside, too, draughty and dismal enough to have me pulling up the hood on my
coat and cursing my decision to come in. I follow the directions the doorman
grunted at me and find an office at the far end of the building.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Inside it’s a lot warmer and there’s a few card
tables and a roulette wheel. There’s even a makeshift bar staffed by a couple
of honeys in sexy dresses that really don’t suit the place. The main strip
lights are off and the room’s lit by small desk lamps so it’s cosy enough. The
air’s so full of cigarette and cigar smoke it stings my eyes for a minute
before they can adjust. It’s obviously a working office by day but most of the
desks have been pushed to the far end, making more room for the twenty or so
people there. I know a few of them but most are strangers to me.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">One of the honeys takes my coat and gives me a
flash of teeth. I gotta say, both those girls were gorgeous. I mean, like,
Broadway gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous you see on billboards trying to sell
panties and scent. You gotta wonder what gals like that are doin’ serving
drinks to guys like me in a crappy warehouse in the small hours of a frosty
Wednesday morning. There’s no justice, you know? A crying shame, so it is, an
honest-to-God fucking tragedy so far as I can see.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Anyway, she offers me a drink while I wait and I
ask for a coffee but, before she can bring it, there’s a big sigh from a table
in the middle of the room. The Big Table. Somebody’s just lost, and lost big.
The somebody turns out to be a kid, fresh out of college maybe, and he gets up
in silence, unsteady on his pins. He’s got the look. The look like he’s just
been shot in the head.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He gets up and staggers away for a few paces
before stopping and turning around. He’s shaking like a shitting dog as he goes
back to the table and the four players still sitting there look at him all
suspicious, ready for trouble. He’s just a kid, maybe he don’t know the rules,
but it’s okay. He pulls his jacket from the back of his chair and then turns to
leave, for good this time. His face is red as fresh cut beef and there’s tears
all down his cheeks. He rushes out as fast as he can, not looking anybody in
the eye, and is gone. The boss, sitting at the head of the Big Table shuffling
the deck, nods at a big guy in a shiny suit. The big guy follows the kid out
with a determined look on his face, like a football player thinking about his
next drive.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“We seem to have an opening, if you’d care to
join us,” Nick Malvagio says. I’d never met him before, but I’d heard of him.
He’s the owner of this game and he’s just invited me to his table, so I can’t
refuse. Wouldn’t have, anyway. I’d heard he was a good player and I like to
test myself against good players from time to time. Win or lose, it keeps me
sharp enough to shear the lesser sheep. So I accept. Malvagio offers me the
deck to cut and I just tap it – mark of respect, see? Shows I trust the table
to shuffle right. Besides, I’m busy taking my jacket off, rolling up my
shirtsleeves, settling in.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I introduce myself and take my seat while one of
the honeys exchanges my cash for chips, just a couple of grand’s worth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“I have heard of you,” Nick says, “ hear you can
play cards.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I smile and do the modesty thing, it’s what they
all expect, a kind of unwritten etiquette. You’ve gotta be careful in games
like this; lotsa the players are heavy guys so you don’t want to screw with
them. You win off them fair and square and they get vindictive on your ass,
their buddies jump in and stop it. These people don’t tolerate bad losers and
they tolerate bad winners even less. Like I said, you gotta be careful, tread a
fine line. Laugh at their jokes, join in the conversation, pretend you ain’t
spotted their tells. Still, I’m kinda happy to know he’s heard of me, and he’s
given me an intro the table will respect. They know I’m a player now, so they
know I’m here for just one thing. It calms them down; now they’ve got an excuse
if they lose and a tale to tell if they win.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“You know me,” he says, “Nick Malvagio, owner of
this... magnificent establishment and this delightful little game. The
gentleman to your left, if such an appellation can be attached to so rough a
beast, is Charlie ‘Hotdog’ McMahon.” This is how he talks, I shit you not. His
accent sounds real enough but he don’t talk like any Italian I ever met. “Twixt
Charlie and I sits possibly one of the greatest minds fork lift truck driving
has ever produced, Dickie ‘The Fork’ Miller.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I shake the guys’ hands as they’re introduced
and already I’m getting the measure of them. Poker ain’t just about the cards, see?
Fact, the cards are probably the least important part of the game. Poker’s
about people. You can calculate all the odds you want but if you can’t read
people you’ll never be a real poker player.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“And finally, to your right, Albert Meadows; the
only accountant ever to have shot himself in both feet, with two different
guns, on the same day.” The rest of the guys laugh, even old Albert laughs in a
‘screw you’ kind of way. So, all these guys know each other and they’re pretty
tight. I’m the outsider, and that can be dangerous, but it’s also a big plus.
They don’t know anything about how I play but they know how their buddies play.
So I can key off how they react to each other, see? Gives me an edge. It don’t
matter much. After a couple of hands I can’t see any of them posing a serious
threat. None of them except Malvagio. He’s as good as I heard he is.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">An hour later an’ I’m hittin’ my stride, winning
steady, bit at a time, enjoying myself. Outside, in the cold, New York’s curled
up around us like a sleeping cat. Only us fleas are still up and about.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The Accountant gets himself a real good hand,
his nostrils give it away, and I know he’s going for it. I got nothing so I
fold and soon it’s just Malvagio and the Accountant with bullet holes in his
feet. I can’t read Malvagio at all, there’s nothing gives him away. It’s a joy
to behold, you know? Like watching an artist or something.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">From the cards on show I can guess what the
Accountant’s holding but I’ve no idea what Malvagio’s got. The Accountant
finally makes his move and goes all in. One of those silences falls, you know?
Everybody watching, waiting to see what’s going to happen. The door opens
behind me and somebody comes in but nobody takes any notice, not even the
honeys.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Malvagio stares at the Accountant for a long
time. He’s got a face like Marlon Brando but younger and a lot thinner. His
suit’s the best one in the room by a long shot and even an alien from Mars
would know he owns this game. Eventually, he goes all-in too and the cards are
turned. The Accountant’s toast but he takes it on the chin. I reckon he’s just
burned eight grand but the money don’t seem important to him. Cleaned out, he
makes his excuses and limps to the exit, throwing cheery farewells to the
honeys. Nobody follows him.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“Carter!” Malvagio shouts to the guy who just
came in, “join us.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">A youngish, dark-eyed man in jeans and a Yankees
sweatshirt drops into the Accountant’s old chair. He looks determined, a bit
too determined, and empty. Like he’s already lost big tonight. I’ve seen him
somewhere before, but I can’t place him. Probably at other games around the
city. He doesn’t recognise me so I let it go. Lots of faces in the poker game.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">There’s something about his face, though, you
know? Something defiant. He reminds me of your man up there, when he was in
that garden waitin’ to be pinched. Gethsemane, was it? Yeah, that’s the place.
Like he knows he’s on the very last hand of his very last game and can only
figure one way to play it out. There’s undercurrents here. I see it but I’m too
dumb to be worried, thinking I can take advantage of the new guy’s distraction.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“Gentlemen, meet Absalom Carter, pride of the
NYPD and current holder of the Tri-State most-hookers-banged-in-one-afternoon
award.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Carter doesn’t like his intro, but listens as we
all get introduced. He doesn’t shake hands. When Malvagio introduces me, he
calls me “a very good card player whom I suspect is holding back for fear of
getting a little bit shot at if he plays to his full potential.” I can’t tell
if he’s joking with me or making a challenge.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Carter plays competently but impatiently. His
mind’s on more than the game and he’s waiting for a good hand. It’s clear he
wants to go up against our host but Malvagio gives no sign he’s noticed. I take
advantage of the cop’s distracted state to win me my biggest pot of the night,
two and a half grand. Nick Malvagio nods at me but I can’t read what the nod
means. God, but he’s good. Really, really good. Perhaps the best I’ve ever
played.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Perhaps.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Carter gets the hand he’s been waitin’ on and
makes his play. I stay with it for a while but the last card’s a nothing and I
fold. Malvagio bets six grand and there’s that silence again. Carter’s got
about four grand in front of him in untidy piles. He’s been disdainful of it
since he sat down but now he needs it bad and he ain’t got enough. What happens
next is as old as poker, old as dice, old as the world, maybe. Carter don’t
want to quit. He’s got faith in his hand but air in his pockets, an arrangement
needs to be made.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“There’s only one thing of yours I want,”
Malvagio says. “The thing you already owe me.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Carter knows what he means and tries to cry off.
He was expectin’ somethin’ less, I think. There’s real fear in his eyes now,
he’s wavering. The other players look at each other. They know what’s going on
and I know better than to ask. I’m in too deep now, gettin’ dragged to places I
don’t wanna go. I’ve won enough, so after this hand I’m gonna dust off. Maybe
swing by Gregor’s all-nighter and pick me up a new TV. Nice plasma screen or
something. Go home, pour me a stiff Jack and watch Max Keiser on RT. It’s a
good plan, the best one I’ve had all night I think, and I just need to wait for
Carter and Malvagio to finish up before I can git gone.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“I’ve known you for a very long time, Carter.
You’ve made a lot of money out of me and you’ve also, to my eternal regret,
betrayed me. There will be a reckoning, have no illusions about that, but if
you bet what I desire then we will be square. If you fold, of course, the problem
of what to do with you – and her – remains.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">That’s what Carter’s been waiting for. If he
wins this hand he’s not only a lot richer but also off the hook for whatever it
is he did or didn’t do. It’s pretty clear that he’s a cop on the take and that
Malvagio’s got him cornered. Now Carter wants out and this is the only way he
can think to get there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">He agrees and turns his cards. Time does that
thing where it stops and has a look at what’s going on. Malvagio turns his
cards and it’s all over for Carter. Two heavies loom up behind him.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“Take officer Carter away and make sure he hands
over my winnings,” Malvagio says, pulling the chips in the middle of the table
into his own enormous stack. The heavies grab Carter by the arms and pull him
away. He doesn’t resist. He’s got the same look on his face as the kid I saw on
the way in. They drag him out the door and away. It’s time for me to quit but I
don’t get the chance.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“I want you and me to play a hand,” Malvagio
says, “a real hand. Just the two of us. I want you to give me your best shot.
I’ve been waiting for you to play properly all night and your holding back is
becoming tiresome. Fear not, there will be no use of firearms, should you win.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I try to bail but he doesn’t listen. He just
deals the cards and, like it or not, I’m in. How did things turn to shit so
fast? I should’ve left when the cop arrived, I should’ve seen this coming.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">First card he deals me is the king of hearts,
the second is the nine. I do as he’s asked and slip into play mode, betting high.
Jack of hearts, and my heart is starting to beat a little faster. I’ve got just
shy of twenty one grand in front of me, way more than I’d planned on walking
away with. The next card he gives me is another heart, the ten this time, and
I’m on the promise of something decent. I bet big, but not too big. Taking my
time, feeling Malvagio’s gaze on me and hoping he doesn’t know what I’m
thinking.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The last card comes and it’s an atom bomb. The
queen of hearts. I’m holding a straight flush, the nine to the king of hearts.
The best hand I’ve held in all my life and almost the best hand there is.
Almost.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Malvagio doesn’t even think about it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“All-in,” he says, pushing his chips into the
middle of the table. There’s fifty grand there, easy, and I can’t remember
seeing so much in front of him before but there it is. Beautiful. Terrifying.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I haven’t got that kind of money on me. He knows
it but he can’t know what cards I’m holding. Only one poker hand can beat mine
and he can’t have it. The odds against are astronomical. I have to play. I have
to. We must dance the credit dance. But what do I got that he needs?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">“There’s a man I want killed,” he says and, at
first, the words refuse to go into my head, you know? “His name is Joe Turner.
He used to do some work for me but he’s strayed rather badly of late and seems
to think he’s found God, or some such nonsense. I’m informed that he spends
most of his time at a certain church, helping out, stacking chairs and other
such morally stout activities. Bet your services in this matter and I shall
regard the pot as covered. I will even provide you with a gun and an alibi,
should you lose the hand, of course.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I look at him but it’s no joke. He wants me to
murder somebody. If I lose. Holding the best hand I’ve ever seen. I look at him
for a long time, weighing up my options. He hasn’t bluffed all night but that
don’t mean shit. I study his face for some clue, no matter how slight, but
there’s nothing until, just for a second, I get this <i>feeling</i>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Maybe I’ve seen something, something that
doesn’t register consciously, but suddenly I know him; I know who it is I’m
playing against and a shiver trickles all down my spine and into my nuts. But
my hand is still strong, still the strongest I’ve ever held. All my life boils
down to this one moment; win a small fortune or kill a man. Damnation or
salvation. Play or fold.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Then it hits me, right out of the blue; I know
where I’ve seen the cop before. He was in uniform then, which is why I didn’t
recognise him from the photo on the front page of Lenny’s newspaper. A dead
hero covered in greasy fingerprints.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">So that’s why I’m here. You might say it was on
the cards. You know who I really played poker with today and you know that
there will be consequences. He’s looked into my eyes and he knows me now, knows
that I exist, so what else could I do with that straight flush?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">I need you to tell Joe Turner, Father, warn him
to get outta Dodge fast as he can; and I need you to give me the Last Rites.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">The end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">© Mark J. Howard 2008/2015</span></span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background: white;">Interview with Mark: </span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">1)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Nick’s Game</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is on of the best things I’ve read on
YouWriteOn. Where did the idea come from?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">
<span style="background: white;">Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. The
idea for <i>Nick’s Game</i> came from the same place most of my ideas come from
– daydreams!</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">We all take stuff in all the time – images, stories,
facts, ideas, colours, sounds, smells, perspectives, feelings – a whole
universe of disparate stuff. The trick is to notice as much of it as I can and
then just take time to sit with a pencil and just daydream – let it all play on
its own. The ideas are all there, crashing together, it’s just a case of
catching them and writing them down, like fishing. Most of the ideas turn out
to be tiddlers or old boots but occasionally I hook one like <i>Nick’s Game</i>
and develop it. So, to (finally!) answer your question, the idea came from a
mixture of The Sopranos, Goodfellas, a late-night poker show on the telly and
ideas about evil and the nature of the Devil. All these ideas kind of stuck
together like clay and I just refined the shape.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">To answer truthfully – I don’t know!</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">2)</span> I read the story believing the
author was a native New Yorker. How did you pull that off?<span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Again, thank you. I think that’s a great compliment for a
Lancashire lad like me – I’m more Alan Bennet than Al Pacino. Again, it’s about
paying attention to things, in this case accents and rhythms of speech. In the
case of <i>Nick’ Game</i>, it was always set in New York for some reason so I
had two choices – either the Brit abroad or the local. The Brit abroad voice
didn’t feel right but the local voice would be a challenge. To approximate that
New York underworld kind of speech I cheated – I watched Goodfellas and
imagined it was Joe Pesci telling the story. I basically tried to simulate that
tough-guy-poet thing he’s so good at. I think I got it half right but I don’t
know any New Yorkers so I might be miles out.</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">3)</span> Tell me a little about your
background as a writer. How long have you been writing? Why do you write? -
that sort of thing.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">I’ve been writing and reading for as long as I remember. I
was never happier than when I had a pencil in my hand. There were always these
ideas in my head just dying to get out and I spilled them onto paper like they
were the most precious things in the world. It was mainly trash, of course,
un-focused and with nothing much to say. I wrote then because I wanted to be a
writer – I wanted it more than anything and I suppose I thought I deserved it.
It was as if the act of putting a story on paper somehow validated it. I had
some short stories published in tiny fanzines and thought I was a genius. I
became convinced that I was a good writer and couldn’t understand why I
couldn’t get published. So I gave up on it for a while. I concentrated on my
first love, writing comic scripts for the Small Press. Now nearly 50,
I’ve decided it’s time for me to learn to write, which is why I find YWO
invaluable. I’m still having the same ideas I’ve always had and I’m still
scribbling away. The difference is that I don’t want to be a writer any more.
I’m just a man who enjoys writing and anything else is just a bonus.</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">4) </span>What else have you written?</b><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Not much, really. Apart from the bits and bobs on YWO, I’ve
written</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">four full-length novels, two comedy sci-fi, a
comedy fantasy and a</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">James Bond-style adventure (all mercifully
unpublished). Maybe a dozen tiny fanzine stories. From about 2008 I started
having success with comic scripts for Small Press comics <i>FutureQuake</i>, <i>Zarjaz</i>,
<i>DogBreath</i> and <i>Paragon</i>. Comic scripting is great training (not
that you’d know it from my rambling answers!) in brevity. The scripts I have
had published are <i>Judge Dredd</i>, <i>Strontium Dog</i> and <i>MACH 1</i>
(from the comic <i>2000AD</i>), the major episodes of Jikan, a time-travelling,
demon-hunting rogue Samurai created by Dave Candlish and a handful of original
sci-fi/horror/fantasy/humour strips. I have several similar scripts accepted by
editors either being illustrated or in the queue, including an entire graphic
novel of Jikan. I wrote a newspaper column for a local Polish newspaper lasting
all of two issues and created and edited a factory magazine. Oh, and I once
wrote and illustrated <i>The Adventures of Burnley Smith</i> for <i>Trout</i>
comic, an ill-fated <i>Viz</i> clone from the 80s.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">5) </span>Have you ever had anything
published?</b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Apart from the comic scripts, only once. The story is a
straight sci-fi tale titled <i>In the Wink of an Eye</i> and appeared in either
the first or second YWO anthology. We had to buy our own copies, so I’m not
sure it counts. </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">6) </span>Is it true you do all your writing
on an old BlackBerry mobile phone?</b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">At the moment, yes. I was recently made homeless and
everything’s gone a bit wrong. Not as wrong as it might have gone but wrong
enough.</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">My only link to the web right now is this
fantastic old BlackBerry</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">(Hint, hint, Mr BB!) so yes, all my revisions
and YWO reviews, and a</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">couple of new short stories, even this, all on a
tiny ‘phone. It’s amazing, really – I may write a novel about it. Well, I will
when I</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">know how it ends...</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">7) </span>Do you have a particular place you
like to write, or can you write anywhere?</b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">With my fantastic old BlackBerry (hey, you can’t blame a guy
for trying) I can write anywhere. Just somewhere out of the way but anywhere,
really. I think that if you have a special place you limit</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">yourself, become anchored to it. You convince
yourself that you can’t</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">write unless everything’s just so and I think
that stifles creativity</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">– certainly spontaneity.</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="background: white;">8) Are you any good at poker yourself?</span></b></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Well now, that’s the question, isn’t it?</span></div>
</div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-42446013350542364852015-01-14T09:56:00.000-08:002015-01-14T09:56:12.991-08:00AFC Unity women's football club<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Ok7-F6ilX_9kKArkZOJNDaPwp08whMIcEAktDJ61eBi1Jpp052YBP_txm0LVUDTO1vNjgm8l_1mZ3qey6ieZlHcQnRgfqWzjnbGOZjaGoo7tCNk40rD0vRP7crWXxxOGK_zzksKEWXOj/s1600/11+jan+007+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Ok7-F6ilX_9kKArkZOJNDaPwp08whMIcEAktDJ61eBi1Jpp052YBP_txm0LVUDTO1vNjgm8l_1mZ3qey6ieZlHcQnRgfqWzjnbGOZjaGoo7tCNk40rD0vRP7crWXxxOGK_zzksKEWXOj/s1600/11+jan+007+(2).jpg" height="350" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">AFC Unity first attracted
my attention back in the summer when they put out a call for players to start a
new team (… not that I qualify). They seemed something a little bit different
in women’s football. There’s a lot of talk on their website about their ‘ethos’
of being anti-discriminatory and socially inclusive. And they also have a
really cool social-media profile. I was interested in the substance that lies
behind it, so I went along to watch a game and to find out more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">AFC
Unity play in the Sheffield and Hallamshire Women’s County Football League
Division 3 – the 7<sup>th</sup> tier of women’s football. I admit to not having
seen much women’s football, except for the odd match on the TV, and to not
being much of an expert; but I can see it is an exciting time for the women’s
game. More schools are giving girls the chance to play and the image is
changing. The BBC have at long last taken an editorial decision to cover
women’s football; and the game itself, and the way it is played, is demanding a
higher profile – with the increasing support that the England women’s team is
attracting, and the forthcoming World Cup in Canada shaping up to be quite a
pull.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZGpruBvhAoN8STeN0x10_k7L5MkIcXqkNxaXXsOqBsjzi_QfSNvvksdnkcBJ-V8DgVxBVPwmOGyw_6uueGfWkgdCCjw8A8TrcbYoUoKm8GzFFxY4wZhIVWUj3NQ0u6A8FJhv2MfznnFS/s1600/11+jan+020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZGpruBvhAoN8STeN0x10_k7L5MkIcXqkNxaXXsOqBsjzi_QfSNvvksdnkcBJ-V8DgVxBVPwmOGyw_6uueGfWkgdCCjw8A8TrcbYoUoKm8GzFFxY4wZhIVWUj3NQ0u6A8FJhv2MfznnFS/s1600/11+jan+020.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unity's Nathalie Silver, happy with her hat-trick</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">You
will be disappointed if you set out wanting it to be the same as the men’s
game. Most obviously, it is less physical (although that doesn’t mean the
tackles are in anyway dainty!). Nevertheless, the skill levels are getting
better all the time (for proof, look no further than Stephanie Roche’s Puskas
award-contending goal).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is wrong to judge the women’s game by the standards of the men’s. Put those
pre-conceptions to one side and it is entertaining, and, of course, once you
start wanting one team to win more than another, you are drawn in to the
personal and team battles going on out there on the pitch – as in any sporting
contest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Seeing
a live game might also answer daft questions I had from watching on the TV –
like what do they shout when an opposition player is coming up behind a
team-mate?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">These
women are also part of a long tradition of the women’s game: it was widely
played at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century and attracted very large
crowds. In Sheffield during the First World War, teams of women munitions
workers played regular fixtures against each other. It died a death when the
old-school-tie codgers of the FA </span><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt;">banned women from
playing on football grounds under their auspices because “…the game of football is quite unsuitable
for females and ought not to be encouraged.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><b>...</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 17pt;">The
match at Hillsborough College between AFC Unity and Rotherham United Ladies
Development was that old cliché – a six pointer. Unity were lying in third
place in the league, one point behind Rotherham and 5 points behind Beighton
Magpies, whose game was postponed today. So, Unity’s victory narrows the gap
behind Beighton to 2 points; although Beighton now have three matches in hand.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPzkV_gVlxkVHf-a7kzPV2VHJ7b__AzwabGOZN8WRp7aaLpk4M8Vmo730ZB-FYAlUdqiY7VdYFWPn92RSuZ3Fg57VnjvLgjla5V19ph6oqxD9L30l_PSe1bX09okr3geUCbee34jFXhZ38/s1600/11+jan+006+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPzkV_gVlxkVHf-a7kzPV2VHJ7b__AzwabGOZN8WRp7aaLpk4M8Vmo730ZB-FYAlUdqiY7VdYFWPn92RSuZ3Fg57VnjvLgjla5V19ph6oqxD9L30l_PSe1bX09okr3geUCbee34jFXhZ38/s1600/11+jan+006+(2).jpg" height="247" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silvers floating shot that went in off the bar.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
Unity were the first to score on
23 minutes. Great pressure down the right wing from Jodie Spillings kept the
ball in play, only for her to put the ball out for a goal-kick. Goal-kicks, at
this level are more like in junior football, the ball sometimes not being
cleared much beyond the box, creating an opportunity for the attacking side to
steal. This is what Unity did: Nathalie Silver floating the ball in off the
cross bar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
Their lead was short-lived. Three
minutes later Rotherham forced an error from Unity’s keeper, Chess Hollingdale:
the ball was spilled right at the edge of the goal and bundled over the line.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
Both sides created further
chances. Silver had a corker of a chance from a great ball pushed down the
middle and found herself with only the keeper to beat, but the keeper did just enough
to put her off and she put it wide. Minutes later a cross was put in from the
right and travelled across the goalmouth with no one making the movement to get
onto it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
The second Unity goal came 15
minutes into second half when Silver made her superior pace count, and again
dashed forward onto a skilful through-ball from play-maker Jane Watkinson; this
time she skipped beautifully passed the keeper and slotted it home – it’s not
often you get a chance to replay an earlier miss, but that is exactly what she
did: almost a replica of the 1<sup>st</sup> half chance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
There was a lot of honest graft
by both sides, but Rotherham couldn’t find the break, and it was Unity who
finished the game off with the best goal of the game, some great skill being
shown in crossing the ball from the right and Silver again stepping round the
keeper to side-foot it in for her well-deserved hat-trick.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
Rotherham squandered two late
chances to take something away from the game and it finished 3-1 to AFC Unity.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">...</span></b></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9K7azwTqTUOl3tKrIEE-hySEIhjV70_YKDvqGIgSQOFrtlxfZbkVon3zcC50ZEQOJIUons-iWI1R9VTgMQyVkzspA3JG_CEodVzZsXkqbiSpd6GutXdLm8v_I-kJnEgHvxa6R0obmCn2/s1600/11+jan+004+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9K7azwTqTUOl3tKrIEE-hySEIhjV70_YKDvqGIgSQOFrtlxfZbkVon3zcC50ZEQOJIUons-iWI1R9VTgMQyVkzspA3JG_CEodVzZsXkqbiSpd6GutXdLm8v_I-kJnEgHvxa6R0obmCn2/s1600/11+jan+004+(2).jpg" height="201" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unity's keeper, Hollingdale, palms one wide</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 17pt;">Afterwards,
I spoke to the co-founders of the club: Jane Watkinson, also AFC’s captain, and
the manager Jay Baker, in the Old Crown Inn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They
decided to set up AFC to provide a different, more progressive, sort of club –
with a community, grass-roots base, as Baker says: “raising awareness of
certain issues and tackling misconceptions of what sort of people like, or
don’t like, football.” For example, challenging stereotypes that women have to:
“take on a macho guise or be aggressive towards their own team mates.” It is
early days, but one of the things they do is to run open-access sessions at the
U-Mix Centre to encourage women, who have never kicked a ball, to try it out. I
asked if there was a lot of untapped potential – women sat about doing nothing
who could walk into a team in this league. Watkinson said there was: “I think
it’s sometimes down to lack of publicity. It’s something we do well – our advertising through social media. I also
think it’s sometimes the case that teams only offer one route – just
competitive football – which is why we try to offer informal football – so that
women can get involved without having to commit every week. If people have kids
they can’t always get to training – it’s about being flexible.” Baker added:
“there are probably women out there who would be phenomenally good at football,
but who might be more inclined to have a go at tennis, for example, because of ideas
that it might be more socially acceptable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> They also want to raise funds for things like
work in schools, youth groups, and with women’s groups in the city. They are
also hoping to do some sessions with women who have been through the Criminal
Justice System, to get them back into meeting other women from the area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I
asked what makes AFC Unity different. They said while they are competitive, it
is not the be-all and end-all. Watkinson says Baker’s management style is:
“different to any managerial style I have known before, because it is friendly
and individualized – making people comfortable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was clear to me that it is a friendly club. It may seem a paradox, but, just by
not obsessing about being competitive, it may actually strengthen the side.
Unity’s results show that this approach can have benefits in building a winning
team through good team spirit. They have also attracted what Baker called
“great players” who want to play in a supportive atmosphere – you don’t need to
sacrifice competitiveness just because you reject certain attitudes.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSBUs55KIysbfQGArJZODQqzGfbyrutz4g5unwffBVgQ5U1X-MCUtDopmwfhSrZdEvRYoCX67VWJbM3UhTJzjTzd4JtvAqGpBx65-1K5vJ6vjZjZW46uD_iGLLX8082JRsAmgYgBet7v83/s1600/11+jan+009+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSBUs55KIysbfQGArJZODQqzGfbyrutz4g5unwffBVgQ5U1X-MCUtDopmwfhSrZdEvRYoCX67VWJbM3UhTJzjTzd4JtvAqGpBx65-1K5vJ6vjZjZW46uD_iGLLX8082JRsAmgYgBet7v83/s1600/11+jan+009+(2).jpg" height="247" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unity shot goes wide</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 17pt;">It
would be easy for some to fall into cynicism, and knock their earnest approach,
but I came away believing in what they were trying to do. They are genuinely
trying to make a difference, and that deserves support. I would encourage
anyone with an hour or so on their hands on a Sunday afternoon to get down to
Hillsborough College and support them: something quite special is happening in
women’s football on our doorstep.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And,
that question about what to shout when about to be tackled from the blind side:
“man-on” – what else could it be!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<a href="http://afcunity.org/" target="_blank">http://afcunity.org/</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AFCUnity" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/AFCUnity</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52W3Vn0oaV9cKhhSGi80IJPZys695hCpZEx1Ls2oMGecqs6oyZFDJ_tpTRNwH0UAv6ggyGZXrwXtf9tEfY5tK9KTaRyGN2EBD311Vsbs_Ej6WvfwqpeeJrRbBZRkGuAjdDL1MEjpHrih5/s1600/cropped-afcunityheader3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52W3Vn0oaV9cKhhSGi80IJPZys695hCpZEx1Ls2oMGecqs6oyZFDJ_tpTRNwH0UAv6ggyGZXrwXtf9tEfY5tK9KTaRyGN2EBD311Vsbs_Ej6WvfwqpeeJrRbBZRkGuAjdDL1MEjpHrih5/s1600/cropped-afcunityheader3.jpg" height="148" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 17.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK53.381128999999987 -1.4700850000000453.078144999999985 -2.11553200000004 53.684112999999989 -0.82463800000004006tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-73354400283222880292014-12-20T13:46:00.000-08:002018-11-11T10:17:25.769-08:00Side by side - a short story. First published in "The Football Pink"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2YZVNTfifj7HXVjwmWwDQL9NjyJapnjPU8wU1yJu3Wn2VFt86BGvxpioMq__y4ELD6ZnIR0NFcEhrE00ANRt59yZrtNSSqjHxAb3YThpqAGhEC5XFFSOLGneQOFJWeYTxFD68e2Z2LWCz/s1600/khaki+cup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="521" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2YZVNTfifj7HXVjwmWwDQL9NjyJapnjPU8wU1yJu3Wn2VFt86BGvxpioMq__y4ELD6ZnIR0NFcEhrE00ANRt59yZrtNSSqjHxAb3YThpqAGhEC5XFFSOLGneQOFJWeYTxFD68e2Z2LWCz/s1600/khaki+cup.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">On
April 24<sup>th</sup> 1915 Sheffield United beat Chelsea by three goals to nil
in the FA Cup final at Old Trafford, the only Cup Final to be played in time of
war. The Khaki Cup...</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joe stepped off the train. The grease and steam from the
engine mixed with that distinct smell of man, beast and machine working flat
out to produce shells and armour plate: the smell of home. He stopped and
checked the pocket of his great coat: the programme was there, safe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘What’s up wi’ thi Joe?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Nowt, I were just thinking about our Stan – seems
funny ’im not bein’ ’ere. ’e never missed a match.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘I’m sure ’e’d rather be out with the BEF bashin’
the Hun.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Come on you two – we’re gaggin’ – let’s go an’
celebrate – shall we get half way back first?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Nah, let’s get one at the Queen’s Head, then come
back and see the boys home eh? If we’re late we’ll sneak back through the
hole.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joe sat with his pint, only half listening to his pals
recounting the highlights of the game.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘I don’t care what we paid for Utley – he were
magnificent – a bloody rock at the heart of the team – him and Beau – if we
could put up a battalion of men like them they’d have the Union Jack flying
over Berlin by Easter. Two thousand pound! A bloody bargain!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> He might not have his brother with him but he was in
good company here: men he would be proud to stand side by side with. Harry, who
grew up in the next street, who he played with on the Rec as a kid and who
signed up with him at the Corn Exchange back in September. Big Bob, the teacher
from Healey who, at five foot five, had had to gain another inch in height
through pride and another two around the chest in order to pass the medical.
Chalkie, the Town Hall clerk, and Walter, the professor, who was smarter than
the rest of them put together but who was as coarse as a miner after a pint or
two. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> They had been together for seven months now. That
first day at the Drill Hall they were a shambles: a disparate bunch of
individuals in an assortment of Norfolk Jackets, waistcoats, flat caps and
Sunday best. They got their orders from the local papers, and it felt right
that his first day’s drill – six hours in the sun – was on the pitch at Bramall
Lane, overlooked by those building the new Shoreham Street Kop. They practiced
rushing at Germans with brooms through the flower beds of Norfolk Park and they
dug trenches on the lawns. There was a shortage of uniforms so their first
ones, in bluey grey, made them look like convicts – or postmen. They moved from
brooms to obsolete rifles. Now they were a proper disciplined unit, sat in
proper khaki uniforms, and would soon be getting Lee Enfields – his brother
could fire at least sixteen shots a minute with his. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They had headed up to the new barracks up on the moors at Redmires in
December. Up there the new regimental Union Jack was torn to shreds by the
weather within months, and they would wake up trapped in their huts by the
drifting snow – it was then that Big Bob came into his own and was passed out
through the window to get the door open.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Those route marches across Stanage in full battle
order didn’t half make men of them – if they didn’t get pneumonia. It had been
the best time of his life: having such good comrades, getting up at midnight at
New Year to sing Auld Lang Syne outside the huts, the concerts at the YMCA hut,
sneaking off to the Three Merry Lads and back through the hole in the wall, and
the crowning moment: beating the Sherwood Forresters six goals to nil on
Thursday! The colonel was strict but fair, and let them take leave for
important things: like cup games at Bramall Lane – and today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘What about Jimmy Simmons though? The way he crashed
in Utley’s centre! I bet his uncle were a proud man today. God bless the big
man.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Aye, an’ did tha see ol’ Nudge there today an’ all
– done up in his best suit? Best captain United’ll ever ’ave.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Chalkie raised his glass: ‘To Ernest ‘Nudger’
Needham and William ‘Fatty’ Foulke!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘First goal I ever saw was scored by Needham,’ Joe
said. ‘Replay of the third round of the cup against Newcastle, the last time we
won it. I were only six an’ me an’ our Stan got passed over people’s head right
to the front.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Stan was probably asleep in his bunk somewhere now;
God please let that be so; wondering what the score was – unless it got
telegraphed to the front. He reached in his pocket and got out the things for
sending to Stan – the Cup Final programme and a “Sports Special”<i> Green ’Un,</i>
a bit stained from the pie he’d bought before the game. He regularly sent Stan
match reports and cuttings from <i>The Independent.</i> Some snobs had wanted
football cancelled at the outbreak of the war. But Stan said it gave them heart
to read about their teams; and what else were those who were flogging their
guts out all week to raise coal or cast steel supposed to do with their leisure
time? The one small escape each week from all the worry. Those Oxford and
Cambridge men just didn’t like people being paid to play sport – they didn’t
get football, the working man’s game – didn’t understand the fight with “sorrow
for the young man’s soul.” Those same chinless southerners didn’t bark on about
the cancellation of horse racing. Or opera, or golf, or West End theatre!
“Business as usual” was a one-sided mantra. No, it was the poor who had to go
and fight or sweat in foundries and have no pleasure, never smile, never cheer,
until the war was won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘Tha looks glum again Joe. I’ll get thi another.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘No, hadn’t we best go back over to the station?
Don’t want to miss the boys’ return.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No
one seemed to know what time the train was due in, but a crowd was building at
the station, those in khaki, like them, getting pats on the back. There had
been a lot of men in khaki at Old Trafford that afternoon, perhaps half the
crowd. Some like themselves still in training, some on leave, others with
bandages or walking on crutches. How his chest had swelled when fifty thousand
voices sang ‘God Save the King’ before the teams walked out. He imagined the
Kaiser hearing those voices and quaking. The sky was khaki too, especially in
the second half: it was during half-time that the fog fell, yellowish and
thick, as the band played ‘Tipperary’ and the crowd sang along. The only way
you could tell there were people on the other side of the ground was from
matches being struck or the glow of cigarettes or pipes. The light improved a
little towards the end – the United with their long passing and rapier-like
thrusts pushed aside the Beanstalk Club and their delicate passing play:
over-powered them – just what they would do to Kaiser Bill. At the third goal,
over-excited kids burst onto the field wanting to shake Joe Kitchen’s hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.35pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Excitement
started to build at Midland Station at around ten o’clock – the rumour was that
the train was due in. They would miss the last tram up to Nether Green now,
which meant an even longer walk up to Redmires – though a happy one. There must
be over a thousand waiting. Then the train is heard pulling in and the cheering
starts and chants of “Hi, Hi for the
rowdy dowdy boys.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> He
only saw the heads of some of the players through the crowd – there was to be
no triumphalism, no parading of the cup, they were just bundled into taxis and
away into the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> So that was it then. Another season over. No one
believed that football could continue as normal through the next one. No Cup
Final next year. Soon their battalion would be leaving the city to go and do
their bit. Some had worried that all their training would be for nothing: that
the Germans would cave in before last Christmas. No; maybe next – then he and
Stan could stand side by side on the terraces once more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-50514111968687081462014-12-03T12:08:00.000-08:002014-12-03T13:26:52.789-08:00Interview with author Brian Sellars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Reviews of Brian's Billy perks novels at: <a href="http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/sheffield-novels.html" target="_blank">http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/sheffield-novels.html</a></b><br />
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<b>1) How much research
did you do for the Billy Perks books and how much is done from memory of your
time in Sheffield?</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Most of what I
write springs from my own experience, but the facts must still be checked. I
think it’s essential to research even into areas one feels familiar with. One
reason for this is that, weirdly, it often seems that my characters are
remembering things themselves, and I have to check them out. But it’s no chore.
I feel researching is one of the perks of being a writer. I read books about
the fifties and post war Britain. Maps, guides, old newspapers and Sheffield
reference works are essential and of course Wikipedia. PictureSheffield.com, is
truly brilliant.</span></div>
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<b>2) I went to The
Rivelin Hotel to ask for a Campari and soda and to look at the Man’s Head Rock.
Is it actually called that? You can’t really get to the big rock I presume it
to be: it is too overgrown. Were you able to get closer back then?</b></div>
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Regrettably, Man’s Head Rock is
now screened by trees. It used to be a striking sight, visible for miles. I
think it’s a shame that the landowner has allowed it to become hidden, thereby
depriving visitors to Rivelin of a truly dramatic view.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> </div>
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<b>3) I couldn’t see any
Tudor cottages near Orchard Road (the Star Woman’s cottage). Were they
fictional or have they gone: it looks like there have been a lot of changes
round there.</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">PictureSheffied.com
has a photograph of the real Star Woman’s cottage. It is reference No: t02391
and is called “Old Cottage on Orchard Road”. The row of three cottages
overlooked what was locally called the skittle yard. A block of maisonettes
covers the site today.</span></div>
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<b>4) I guess living
somewhere posh and sophisticated like Bath must have its plus points, but do
you miss Sheffield? Do you still come back?</b></div>
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I miss Sheffield a great deal, and though I would love to
move back there I doubt that family commitments will ever allow it. I make
research trips and visit family and friends as often as possible.</div>
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<b>5) Does the distance
from Sheffield have its have advantages when it comes to writing fiction?
Giving you a different perspective?</b></div>
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Definitely it does. The Sheffield I write about is long
gone. When I visit the city today I see much that I barely recognise. Perhaps
being away from the Sheffield of today is actually essential for my kind of
fiction, because what I see in my mind is the city as it was when I was twelve
years old; a brave, struggling city, scarred by war and shortages, and
untouched by redevelopment and civic improvement.</div>
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<b>6) Does living near Bath
mean you are now a Rugby Union fan or do you still follow the trials of the
Sheffield football clubs?</b></div>
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No it’s football for me, but there is a major downside to
living away from one’s hometown, the severe dilution of parochialism. As a
Walkley lad it used to be only the Owls I worried about. Now it’s the Blades
too, as well as Hallam, the Tykes, the Millers, the Vikings, the Spireites, and
several other clubs, though not Leeds of course. Fretting about all the
northern clubs east of the Pennines is a major emotional burden. I combat this
by strutting about wearing a bright red Sheffield FC shirt, hoping the locals
will ask me about the world’s oldest football club so that I can brag about it.
However, I’m beginning to notice this makes people run away.</div>
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<b>7) Pikelet or Bath
bun?</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Pikelet, of
course. What’s to say?</span></div>
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<b>8) I love the
characters, particularly Billy and the brilliant Yvonne. Do they draw on
inspiration from anyone you know?</b></div>
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All my characters, even the ones
in my 7<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>century
historical fiction are to some extent based on real people. I don’t know any
other way to do it. I don’t fear being found out, because I guess few of us
would recognise ourselves anyway. In a few cases however, I wish those
concerned would see themselves – Yvonne Sparkes for example. I loved her when I
was a kiddywink. I often wonder if the real Yvonne has read my book and seen
herself.</div>
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<b>9) Do you have a
special place where you do your writing or can you write anywhere?</b></div>
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I write in my office. I’ve never felt posh enough to call
it my study. I write almost every day and can work for hours on end, missing
meals and breaks without a care. I love writing. It really is like time travel
for me.</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>10)
I am excited to hear you have a new book (or is it an old book?) you are working
on:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Wolves of Woden</i>. Can
you tell us a bit about it?</b></div>
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When I learned that the place name Dore in Sheffield comes
from door or gate, because of its strategic importance on the border between
powerful Anglo Saxon kingdoms, I wanted to write about it. Sheffield doesn’t
make much of that part of its history, even though it could be said that the
very first king of all England was declared at Egberts Stone in Dore; not in
Canterbury or Winchester or Westminster or York, but in Sheffield. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>WOLVES OF WODEN will be a
fictionalised account of events at Dore during the birth of Anglo Saxon
England. It is a sort of prequel to The Whispering Bell.</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>11)
I likened<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Tuppenny Hat
Detective</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Emil and the Detectives</i>. Is
that something you read as a child?</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">No, I
didn’t read as a child. I was a very slow reader. My mother struggled to teach
me when I started to fall behind at school. I began writing my first book
before I had read a book. It was called The Stone Circle, and was inspired by a
spooky, solitary trip I made to The Nine Ladies stone circle on Stanton Moor
near Matlock. I wrote about twenty pages, straight off, and loved doing it. I
don’t remember what happened to them.</span></div>
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<b>12) I find it hard to believe agents rejected
<i>Tuppenny Hat Detective</i>. A lot of Amazon reviewers are clearly grateful you went
ahead anyway. Is that one of the most satisfying things about writing for you:
knowing you’ve cheered so many people up?</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Nothing beats
knowing that people are reading my stories. Tuppenny Hat Detective has been
downloaded in its thousands, something I still can’t believe. I read every
review it gets and answer every email I receive from readers. People are often
so generous. It just blows me away.</span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-81243751031021069512014-12-01T13:42:00.000-08:002015-08-30T06:37:16.351-07:00Through rose-tinted spectacles?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve been thinking a lot
about football’s soul recently. It’s perhaps an age thing; add to that watching
my son battling away in his first season in the junior league, an emotional
response to the FA Chairman’s England Commission report, England’s predictable
failure in Brazil, and the whole Ched Evans thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I sought a better word than
‘soul’ but couldn’t find one. I mean what really makes football important. It
is not, as some see it, the winning of the next match that is the only thing
that matters. If that was all it was, I’d probably look for something else to
provide a buzz. What I mean are all those things that make football hard to
live without, all the things that provoke an emotional response. Why when sat
even in an empty Bramall Lane in the off-season do the hairs on my neck stand
on end? Just looking at just under two acres of grass? Why do I hear faint
echoes of crowd noise and thuds of tackles? Football has been played on this
space for one hundred and fifty years; every one of those tackles, those goals,
those cheers, those groans, those tears, has built what we have now. My
granddad stood over there between the wars, he brought his son, his son brought
me. I sat up there with my daughter, sit there with my son. This is my
heritage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our great football clubs
are our legacy to future generations, just as they were passed on to us. They
are very precious. Life changes, football changes; but we ought to think about
how change affects the ‘soul’ of our game, and fight change where it does not
preserve what really matters. There are many examples of battles won. But also
of battles lost. It is our game; it’s soul belongs to us, but we have let the
management of our game fall into the hands of a self-obsessed Premier League, a
spineless FA, a corrupt FIFA, and international capital whose sole interest is
shareholder return. We need to reflect, not just on whether our team will win
that next game at any cost, but, more importantly, what sort of football we
will pass on to our children – for them to pass on to theirs. Without fans
there is no game: that gives us tremendous power. We need to use it. Do we just
want football to be a pre-packaged commodity: just a sub-set of the
entertainment business sector? As the @savegrassroots tweet said: “Don’t let
your kids grow up thinking football is a TV programme”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">To lighten things a little,
in my melancholic reflections I came up with a largely ridiculous list of ten
things that have probably gone from the game forever; things that I miss, but
which made football better than it is now. I have followed my team since the
late sixties – perhaps anyone who started following the game in the post-Sky
era will groan: not that old jumpers for goalposts, leather case-ball crap. But
perhaps in thirty years time they will look back fondly at the use of i-Pads at
football grounds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In no particular order: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Singing at matches.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> But surely that still happens? A little, yes, but
something has gone. It is less of a shared experience now. Fans have changed as
communities collapsed and marketing men took over, and there is no longer a
tradition of communal singing in church and school that used to translate to
football grounds. It was no coincidence that many of the songs that were
staples of the terraces derived from hymns: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, When
the Saints, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, or songs based on things like Land
of Hope and Glory. Similarly the loss of Top of the Pops and changes in the
music industry mean that today’s popular songs are not quite so ubiquitous and
rarely mutate into football songs. With one or two exceptions songs have become
mindless chants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Smoking.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Granted, that’s an odd one for a lifetime non-smoker
but there is something I miss about seeing smoke illuminated by floodlights
rolling up from under the roofs of the terraces. I also miss the smell of
cigars on Boxing Day as the dads lit up their Christmas presents. If I whiff
cigar smoke now it still takes me back to Boxing Day matches in the seventies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Terraces.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> I can’t not say something about terraces. Of course
there were many bad things about standing, but why do some of us go on about it
still? When you’re sat in a seat, you can only discuss the game with one or two
people around you and if your season ticket puts you next to a ‘moaner’ you’re
stuck with them like in a bad marriage. You can’t gently migrate to a more
pleasant area. On terraces the banter was with twenty or thirty people. How
best to describe it? It was like Twitter with just your team’s hashtag, no
typing, no time delay and no stupid profile pics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Floodlight towers.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> These were the beacons that marked out the ground –
one in each corner. You could see them rising up above the terraced housing
surrounding so many grounds, like lighthouses to guide you. Big, ugly – and
climbable. Players running around with four shadows. But like most old football
grounds they have gone: replaced by lights shining all around the plastic
stadiums full of plastic seats, stadiums that change their name with every new
sponsor (it only seems to be grumpy old gits who call them ‘grounds’ these
days).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Bobble hats.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Especially the ones knitted by aunts or grannies,
hats with a big floppy pom-pom. Officially merchandised beany hats knitted on
foreign looms are the best it gets. (And don’t get me started on flat caps and <i>baseball</i>
caps.) Likewise scarves – the waving of scarves, the perfect accompaniment to
communal singing. And where have all the rosettes gone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Reserve team games
played in the ground.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> For those of us
too young or who couldn’t afford to follow our team away there was always the
reserve match played at the ground on Saturday afternoon. You’d get the results
of the first team announced and could watch a game. The ground was relatively
quiet and you heard every call, every grunt, every thud of the ball. This
constant use of the pitch was one cause of something else I miss:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Muddy pitches.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Come February the pitch was, in some years, more mud
than grass. It was rolled to flatten out the furrows. Then when it rained
players slid about and got covered in it. Nothing like a well timed slide
tackle in the mud. Fantastic! It was also a great leveller – I remember one of
our sides seemed to thrive in the mud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Idols.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> I feel sorry for kids these days. They have no idols like
I did – no players who stuck around for
season after season: like Len Badger or Alan Woodward. Players who were
loyal to the club and often grew up as fans themselves; flair players whose
talent was natural and not learned or coached. Now a kid gets a favourite
player’s name on their shirt and looks ridiculous six months later come the
next transfer window. Or the officially merchandised calendar just mocks you
when you get to October. The media, celebrity culture, and pampering of players
so that they never become proper grown-ups, also means that idols are
invariably revealed publicly as philanderers, cheats, thugs, or brats. Wasn’t
it better when their private and football lives were separate?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Two points for a win.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> I thought the change to three points for a win was a
bad idea when it was introduced in 1981, supposedly, to encourage attacking
football: to reward goals. It was in some ways the start of the decline. It
made winning all important – more important than the contest. Isn’t a well
fought draw worth half a win? In some ways it provided a seed bed for
unsustainable business models and wage inflation when television money flooded
in. There is evidence that three points for a win decreases competitiveness,
leading to the same old winners and losers which is bad for fans but is good
for investors seeking security of investment. People only interested in a brand.
(That is why they would also like an end to promotion and relegation.) Far from
encouraging attacking football it has led to an increase in cynical football:
making teams that go one goal up shut up shop and defend rather than risk
exposure at the back by going forward. There is also evidence that it
encourages cynical fouls. There is an excellent article on this by Nick Cholst
on the Café Futbol blog at: <a href="http://bit.ly/1oLJkoT">http://bit.ly/1oLJkoT</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tackling as an art</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">. There is every bit as much beauty in a good tackle
as in a curling free kick. But it is an art form that is under threat. Under
threat from cheating players who fall over at the least contact, from referees
who award free kicks because someone falls over (especially if the player
falling over is from a fashionable club) and from braying, partisan fans who
don’t know, and aren’t interested in knowing, the rules. Of course we don’t
want to see career threatening injuries or the old raking of studs down
Achilles tendons to put down a marker, but do we really want to see football
turning more and more into a non-contact sport?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">(What have I missed?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889097198519551378.post-18130655388250829062014-11-25T13:19:00.000-08:002015-08-30T06:28:26.717-07:00Of Mice and Men: a suitable GCSE text?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Is <i>Of Mice and Men</i> really the best we can
do as a text for our kids to study at GCSE? My daughter is currently being
force fed Steinbeck in English Literature and how unappetising a diet it must
be for a young reader. These are kids setting out, you would hope, on a
lifetime of reading and we give them this to pick over – forwards, backwards,
and inside out. If they are to be made to chew over something for months and
months can we at least not give them something nourishing, something
substantial and varied? Instead they get the literary equivalent of a packet of
cream crackers, almost guaranteed to
kill off any joy of reading, excitement of discovery, or varied layers and
depths of writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I
admit to being a bit provocative there, and I also risk putting myself in the
same camp as Michael Gove (what a horrific thought) and ultra-orthodox
Christians who want to ban kids from reading it because of profanities. My
position, though, is that there is much better writing out there: writing with
richness and depth which can be read and re-read and still you learn or
discover something new. I also risk bringing down the wrath (grapes anyone?) of
people who hold Steinbeck up as some sort of god. And how dare a nobody who has
never studied literature academically criticize the literary genius of a Nobel
laureate?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The
themes and story are undoubtedly good. The ‘playable novel’ idea is quite neat;
though it is neither novel (only being novella length) nor play. It is very
visual – clearly a work written in the cinema age – you can imagine the camera
angles and lighting (or staging for a play). The dialogue is crisp like in a
play or screenplay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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However, at one point, at least, this ‘playable novel’ concept creates a
problem for something written in novel form. A novel-reader is not like a
play-goer: sat in a fixed position. A novel-reader moves with the characters,
not just moving with them but even inhabiting their heads at times. When George
and Lennie leave the bunk-house at the end of the second chapter/scene we go
with them in our heads. But then, no – we are shoved back into the bunk-house
to be made to watch the ancient dog walk in. It is odd – it doesn’t work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> We
are also deprived by this technique of any insight into the characters’ thoughts,
motivations or emotions – one of the joys of the novel form. As a result
Steinbeck is forced into rather wooden ‘telling’ (stage direction?), heavily
using adverbs to make up for the lack of depth: “she said contemptuously,”
“Curly repeated sullenly,” “Crooks interrupted brutally,” “rubbed his cheek
angrily” etc. Any student of creative writing will have it beaten into them,
perhaps obsessively, to ‘show’ not ‘tell’ – that is more satisfying for the
reader to discover than to be told. The reader is left to have to try to work
out what “smiling wryly” or “said wonderingly” really means.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Some
of the writing is just plain bad. What on earth does this mean:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and
hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and
movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.” I have read this and
re-read it and it still remains as meaningless as Civil-Servant
management-speak. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Then
right at the end Steinbeck forces something very odd on the reader. Lennie is
alone and suddenly a voice comes out of his head, the voice of his aunt – and
this voice in his head is somehow far more eloquent than Lennie? How does that
work? Finally, to cap it all he starts talking to a ‘gigantic rabbit’ who pops out of his head – a rabbit that
says: “You ain’t fit to lick the boots of no rabbit.” A gigantic rabbit with
boots? What was Steinbeck on?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Perhaps my biggest complaint, however, is the misogyny in <i>Of Mice and
Men</i>. I know it is viewed from a 1930s male perspective, not a politically
correct, modern one – but we are holding this up to our girls as being of great
literary merit. Some people will say that the book challenges both sexism and
racism. I don’t see it that way. The main female character is not even dignified
by having a name. On this point she is on a level with the nameless dogs. She
is just Curley’s wife, or worse than that a figure of contempt and hatred: “a
tart,” “a bitch,” “a tramp,” a “that,” “jail bait.” Some will say that it is
deliberate act on the part of the writer to expose these attitudes. But,
contrast the way Curley’s wife is written compared to African American: Crooks.
Crooks is painted sympathetically. He has a purpose in life, intelligence, and
a certain level of skill. He is allowed by Steinbeck to voice the
discrimination against him and stand up for himself. He does not come across as
victim – he is simply discriminated against because of his colour. Curley’s
wife on the other hand is vacuous, and dresses in a ridiculous way for life on
a farm. She is made by the author to come across as she is described by his
characters, and is mocked for her ridiculous notions of being in the movies.
Steinbeck has portrayed her as ‘got it coming to her.’ Had Steinbeck wanted to
highlight the social plight of women he would have painted her sympathetically.
You can’t claim that he is simply showing how hard life was for women in that
position. It is like those films featuring graphic rape that people (usually
men) try to hold up as being anti-rape. It doesn’t wash. What Steinbeck’s
attitude towards women was I don’t know, I haven’t studied it, but his
character is entirely portrayed as an evil influence or at best self-obsessed
and neglected. Not all novels need to be politically correct and there is nothing
wrong with a novel told purely from a macho, male perspective – that is one
aspect of life after all, and novels should reflect all aspects of life –
but to inflict this on our daughters?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> So
why <i>Of Mice and Men</i> for GCSE? Why are we all supposed to be in awe of
the ‘Great American novel?’ (Another heresy, whisper it quietly: <i>The Great
Gatsby</i> is not that <u>great</u>.) Is it something to do with the
self-deprecating attitude in the British psyche that we aren’t allowed to rate
our own art? Is it for the same reason that we don’t hold Elgar, Parry, Vaughan
Williams, Holst, or Stanford in the same esteem as continental European
composers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> What
does anyone else reckon?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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1889 bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18239938230160500561noreply@blogger.com0