The Longside Reference

     Thirteen is usually a lucky number for me and this might be the last diary about the writing of the Roger Eli book.  The completed draft was sent to the publisher on time; give or take a few days. We started in November 2010 and I took it over in the first week of December 2011. A year’s work, that’s three months longer than it takes normally, but one of those months was when I was away all of June and another 2 weeks when we were both away on holiday. Then in the final weeks there was more time lost for various good reasons. So let’s call that 10 months of eating breakfasts in the Potting Shed. No wonder Mrs T breathed a sigh of relief when I went home and said, “Well, that’s that done, and that’s the last breakfast.”
 
    I didn’t tell her that the next meeting might be in December to talk about marketing and what special offers we could do, and we might be having a Christmas Dinner. Special offer number one is a copy of the book, inscribed, with a copy of each of the Derby County FA Cup programmes of January 1992, all signed as well. Those will be £75 but I’m sure we’ll add other items as well. Three sold already.
 
     So, anyway, fingers crossed that 13 is indeed a lucky number again and the book does well and we sell out. I’ll guess now there won’t be a print run of more than 2000. At the end of the day it’s a local book, about a local hero. (What about Local Hero for the title?) If it sells out then it will go on Kindle.

    Last minute ideas cropped up for endings to chapters. There was a last minute decision to ditch one chapter completely and spread its contents amongst other chapters. There was another decision to split another early chapter into two; it had got so long, especially when it became obvious that there was enough material there about Brian Clough to isolate it into a chapter of its own. A large extra chunk was added about the club house Roger was in at Crewe with 3 other young players and all the antics they got up to. One of them was David Platt, yes, that David Platt.
 
     We also worked hard to get more life and stories into the accounts of 91/92… the dressing room, bollockings, superstitions, the cameraderie, the noise and smells and all the images of before a game, after a game, be it a win (which was often) or a defeat when there were crestfallen faces.
 
     Funny how coincidences happen; just days after Roger told me how one of his competitors in the car boot trade was Mick Rathbone, I managed to get a copy of the new Rathbone book. Mick was a player who started at Birmingham, enjoyed 8 years at Blackburn, went on to PNE andthen eventually became the chief physio/medical officer at Everton. Roger had always been a bit of an entrepreneur at BFC but Rathbone used to trespass on his Gawthorpe patch and sell his own slightly more upmarket gear to the Burnley lads. His book, The Smell of Football, by the way is excellent.
 
     There was a meeting that was quite rare on the 18th of November. It ended before 12 o clock. It was a sure sign that the end was near. There was nothing else to talk about other than the last bits and pieces.   The Garden Centre had a huge section filled with Christmas items. I bought a Father Christmas on the way out; I couldn’t resist. 

     The 91/92 player Pen Pictures section was ditched to release space for other things that Roger was providing. There’s a limit to the number of words and the book length if you want to keep it to a reasonable price. But the best snippets of the pen pictures were worked into the account of the 91/92 season.
 
     The Final Draft was completed by Friday the 25th. It was the third draft. It was read through once more. That’s 16 chapters and an intro. To read through it painstakingly takes almost a week. Despite two people being involved in previous proof-reading, alterations and amendments meant there were be more typos to watch out for.
 
     The chapters were emailed to Roger, three at a time, over a period of 5 days so that he could give it a final read-through.
 
      We still ponder on possible titles. The publisher wants a title sorting by December so that he can produce the press releases and send info to warehouses and book chains. (Meanwhile ‘Entertainment, Heroes and Villains’ is now on Kindle) he told me.

Whatever Happened to Roger Eli

If Only

Trials and Tribulations in the game of Football

Catching the Right Train

Not Quite the Glory Game

Have Suitcase will Travel

Have Adidas Bag Will Travel

Broken Hopes 

Broken Hopes…   a Footballer’s Story

Thanks for the Memories

Hopes and Dreams in the game of Football

Hopes and Dreams…  a Footballer’s Story

A Football Journey

Stops and Starts in a Football Journey

Inside the Football Bubble

Heartaches in the Game of Football 

The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli…  a Footballer’s Story   

A Footballer’s Tale

Looking for Goals

     At last we settled on something we both liked. It was one of Roger’s suggestions. It’s one of the above, all of them ideas that have been jotted down over the last few weeks. What we have chosen we’ll keep to ourselves until the first Press release. Publisher was pleased. Next job is to think up some cover ideas. 

     In the meantime I’d been able to go through the whole draft again changing the word ‘guy’, a word I use a lot but it isn’t a ‘Roger’ word. Thank God for wordsearch. Then it was check every reference to Coach Harry Wilson and manager Jimmy Mullen, on balance not two of his favourite people.
 
     Thursday December 1st we met at Roger’s office. Very smart, all new, modern and purpose built. There were some last minute requests to change this, change that, add this bit or delete that bit. While I was away in London for the West Ham game Roger found a few more things to improve. The emails were waiting for me late Sunday night when we got home. By Monday lunchtime the amendments had been made.
 
     Six days after the deadline I delivered the final draft to the publisher in Skipton. I went up at 9.00 to deliver it all on a memory stick and all the pics we’ve accumulated. 12 months work, 12 months meetings, 110,000 words, 16 chapters and an intro, all on a little stick only a few centimetres long. In the very old days there’d have been a stack of manuscript paper three inches thick in a huge manila envelope wrapped up with a ribbon. I find it simply amazing that Charles Dickens wrote 500,000-word books in longhand, and could remember every plot line and character as he went along.
 
     We celebrated with bacon sarnies in the nearby café.  It was also to meet the subject of the next book that starts straight away now that this one is safely delivered.  Who is it? Not tellin’ yer. Not that all work is now done on this one. When the copy editing is completed at the publisher’s end, it’s sent back to us so we go through it all again to look for any more typos and any more last minute corrections or changes. If past experience is anything to go by there will certainly be some.

     Then it goes back again for the page layouts to be done. That comes back to us yet again for a last read-through and check for typos. Then once satisfied it goes back to the publisher. From that point it’s out of our hands. You hope it comes back from the printers without any goofs. The last book Entertainment Heroes and Villains, had to be binned and reprinted, every single copy. All the captions had been omitted on the picture pages. It was their fault entirely, something to do with their software. They had to foot the bill. All that meant it was touch and go whether the new replacement batch arrived in time for launch day at the club. It did, with a day to spare.
                                        
     I sent off the blurb to the publisher for the fliers and the Press release.

     This isn’t a book about money. This isn’t a book about playing in European Leaguesand World Cups. Nor is it a sensationalist, tabloid style, expletive-filled story of recovery from debt, gambling and alchoholism. It’s just the story of a player who had his dreams but never made the big-time, and met no end of obstacles and injuries along the way. It’s a story about life, the crossroads that we meet; the choices that we make, and the way that the decisions of others affect the paths of our lives.It is both heart-rending and heart-warming.
 
     Roger Eli’s career was influenced by several managers; Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest, Eddie Gray and Billy Bremner at Leeds United, and then Frank Casper and Jimmy Mullen, at Burnley. There are others who appeared fleetingly in his story. It’s a story of struggles, determination and bravery, and then brief success before the man who mattered, the man who picked the team, decided he was of no further use.

     Roger Eli was also one of those pioneer black footballers of the early 90’s. He was Player of the Year at Burnley in ‘91/92 and after several years of knockdowns he eventually tasted glory. This is a story about what lies at the heart of football, about how cruel football can be, and how success is so fleeting. For every Terry, Torres or Tevez there are scores of other footballers that make a living from the game, but who could write a manual on the pitfalls and obstacles they meet along the way, yet not without a little humour and a store of good memories. Roger Eli is one of them.
 
     A few ideas for a cover have been kicked around but nothing settled. It needs to be something that reflects the title…whoops nearly wrote it down there… plus his time not just at Burnley, but at Leeds, Wolves and the short but magical time with Brian Clough. Covers sell books. It’s Roger’s job to sift through and select the photographs so as to reflect his life on just 16 picture pages, not an easy thing to do.
 
    Meanwhile I read that Pippa Middleton has signed a £400,000 deal to produce a book on party planning. I say how jolly nice. £400,000 would be very nice. I’m writing the wrong sort of book, that’s for sure.