HELLO NIGE AND THANKS VERY MUCH FOR ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS.
1. First of all, how are you coping with lockdown, especially the home schooling part?
Hi Dave. The home-schooling hasn't been too bad at all, actually. The school has set plenty of work and the kids are keeping to the same timetable of lessons. I'm only getting asked the odd tricky maths conundrum. As I work from my kitchen table normally anyway, the lockdown doesn't feel too different from normal – a couple of hours' work snatched here and there during the day and a good session typing away in the evening. Plus dog walks to throw into the mix.
With the kids' various after-school activities having been put on hold, I haven't had to ferry them here, there and everywhere, so I've found more time for reading. I'm currently revisiting HG Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. Such a great book.
2. As someone who perfectly captured the world of non-league football in The Bottom Corner, what’s your opinion of the suggested merger between League 2 and the National League, to form two regional leagues, and do you worry about the future of some of the smaller clubs?
Thank you, that's very kind. I'm glad – as a non-league nut yourself – that you think that. That was certainly the intention of The Bottom Corner: to capture all its brilliance and all its wonkiness right across that world. I think it's very difficult to remotely predict the future. The crystal ball is very murky. But I can certainly see some sense in reorganising things on a more regional basis. I think it's inevitable that some National League clubs will go back to being part-time, a status that in itself is difficult to sustain playing in a national division, what with the cost of travel across the country/possible overnight stays/players getting additional time off from their other jobs etc. Maybe a return to regionalism, as in the days of the old Third Division South and the such like, is the sensible route to survival. But who, standing in the eye of this extraordinary storm, can currently sketch out what the landscape of everyday life, let alone football, will be?
3. It’s now 30 years since World in Motion came out. Where do you think it stands amongst songs with a sporting link?
It's undeniably in the top three – and certainly the best song adorned by footballers' voices. The other occupants of that top three would be Kraftwerk's Tour de France and Half Man Half Biscuit's Swerving The Checkertrade. The couplet in the latter – 'Oh let me gaze upon your curves / Instead of Ipswich Town's reserves' – proves that my pal Nigel Blackwell is better than Betjeman.
4. Your books cover a wide variety of subjects, including cycling, live music and sport on TV. Your most recent takes a look at the transfer window - can you tell us what gave you the idea and a bit about what the book covers (apart from the obvious)?
This was the only book of mine that wasn't my idea, actually! I was bouncing off ideas with Fran, my then editor at Yellow Jersey Press – many of which were batted back with all the force of a Roscoe Tanner serve – before she hit upon the window as a subject. So I went off and came up with the treatment. I knew I didn't want the book to delve deep into the murky waters of transactions, for me to be chasing a labyrinthine paper trail. I don't have the tools of an investigative journalist, so would have been ill-prepared for that. I'm a feature writer by trade – hearing, and then retelling, peoples' stories. So I settled on travelling around the country to find out what the window itself means to people, to those deeply engaged in it – managers, players, chairmen, agents, scouts, journalists, broadcasters, bookmakers and, of course, fans. Getting access to those at the top of the food chain was pull-your-hair-out tricky, especially as I wanted to talk to people about transfer policy and procedure, arguably the most secretive aspect of a football club's operations. The book was certainly way, way harder to put together than The Bottom Corner, when people across the non-league pyramid welcomed me with wide-open arms. But I eventually got there with Boot Sale, successfully talking to the more invisible characters involved, as well as getting in the room with Premier League managers like Maurizio Sarri and Sean Dyche, or spending time with much-transferred Premier League players like Glenn Murray and Benik Afobe. Driving to Burnley's training ground on Deadline Day at the same time as Peter Crouch was making his way there was a highpoint. (He has a nicer car than me.)
5. As a young journalist, you often did ‘Word of Mouth’ pieces, where you had to ask celebs for their favourite books, films and music - but what are your favourite books, films and music and why? And do you have a favourite of your books?
Book-wise, my favourites have to be:Sport – Gary Imlach's My Father And Other Working-Class Football Heroes. So poignant and so beautifully written. Every word is immaculate.Music – Amanda Petrusich's It Still Moves. It's a trawl around the southern states to uncover and explain the roots of American music. As well as her sharply perceptive words on music, Amanda is a master of travelogue. You feel like you're in the hire car next to her, eating the same truck-stop snacks.Travel – Simon Armitage's Walking Home. A companionable stomp along the Pennine Way with the future Poet Laureate. A real comfort read. Memoir – Bill Drummond's 45. He's a mad old sort who's certainly led a life less ordinary.I can't say I have a favourite among my own books. The Bottom Corner is my most successful, and continues to sell steadily several seasons after it was published. But I was proud that Three Weeks, Eight Seconds – about the astonishing 1989 Tour de France – was shortlisted at the Sports Book Awards as it was the first time I'd chosen to write about cycling, one of my teenage obsessions. Being free of interviews, I appreciated the speed at which I was able to write Butch Wilkins and the Sundance Kid. And then there was the enormous sigh of relief I expelled when Boot Sale finally took the shape that Fran and I had envisaged for it.
6. What I enjoyed most about Butch Wilkins and the Sundance Kid was the sheer amount of different sports we used to watch on TV. Like you, I would happily sit through things like wrestling, bowls, squash and snooker. Do you think Sky has been a good or bad thing for sport in general and would the teenage you have watched so much sport if you had the viewing options currently available?
I don't think I would have been so obsessed with watching it, no. Having just four TV channels during the Eighties (three for the first couple of years) meant you made the best of what was on offer. And, to be fair, I think there's some value in having limited choice. It means you can be obsessive about the limited bill of fare. Nowadays the viewing options are open-ended. The proliferation of sport channels – coupled with sport's disappearance from terrestrial channels – has meant that those 'appointment to view' experiences, where you know a large proportion of the population are tuning in, have disappeared. Only the Olympics and the World Cup could be described as such. Back then, how exciting was it that the latest episode of Dallas or Dynasty could be interrupted in order for us to go live to Zürich where Sebastian Coe was making his latest world-record attempt? We had our priorities right in those days..