My Writing Work

For Newspapers & Other Publications

I have written for The Observer, Liverpool FC Match Day Magazine, FourFourTwo Magazine, Total Football, Empire, The Telegraph & Argus, Jennifer Blue, The City Gent, Football 51 and many, many more.

Publications ranging from the broadsheets of Britain to paperfolded fanzines have featured my writing. From the glossy magazines of the WH Smiths to websites published for profit or fun and I am very proud of every word of mine which has reached print.

My Five Quotes

The visitors were dispatched with the sort of ease that only the most optimistic could have hoped the pre-game tagged balloon release would go on the stillest of West Yorkshire afternoons. On Bradford City vs Walsall, The Observer, January 2003

To suggest that Fincher is an iconoclast is akin to suggesting that Abba reinvented Pop Music and it would be much more accurate to label the Director as a skilled General rather than a Revolutionary. Article written with Simon Newman Empire, March 2002

The kids of tomorrow will not be whistling the Match of the Day theme tune but perhaps that does not matter. Perhaps the BBC should put the old horse alongside Subuetteo and jumpers for goal posts as something we all thing that kids should be more interested in that they will ever be. On ITV winning Premiership rights from the BBC Football 51, June 2000

As Liverpool supporters you will be familiar with the name Paul Jewell but for all those who did not keep an eye on the players who were fit to clean Kenny Daglish's boots but not to replace him on the field let me remind you... Preview Liverpool FC Magazine, November 1999

Linda takes a long drag on a cigarette she does not seem to want but smokes anyway explaining how while there were good and bad points in having (Michael) Stipe's patronage from an industry point of view these were all far outweighed by the fact that almost entirely out of character he could get the engine on her beat up Dodge going in all weathers and this made him invaluable. Interview with Linda Hopper of Magnapop Jennifer Blue, January 1993

Screenplays Written For The Movies

My screenplay The Best of A Bad Lot — the story of the friendship between two stand-up comics — was considered by several British Producers for a year or so in the late 1990s which was as close as any of my four screenplays came to being to going into production.

The screenplay was worked on in a few development meetings, had a re-write options and I'm pleased with it and the progress it made. It was well researched and I tried my hand at stand up comedy in preparation for writing.

The reward for this was that position in the hands of producers which is a long, long, long way further than the vast majority of screenplays every go. I was delighted The Best of A Bad Lot received the attention of various producers because of the futile fate of the majority of screenplays before this stage.

My Favourite Dialogue

A section of a stand-up routine our main character Sam gives in The Best of A Bad Lot.

Sam Speaking of suspicions and the like, my Dad, my Dad wasn't a very suspicious man. He said to me once "Black cats" he said "What the bloody hell is a black cat going to do to you that you can’t do to it twice as hard?" (A beat) I remember reflecting on this after the Puma eat him. (A beat) That was a lie, for comic effect. We didn't have Puma's in Lincoln when I grew up. (A longer beat) It was a Panther.

For The Web

It was love at first sight, Internet publishing and me.

Having dabbled in the cut and paste world of the 1980s, the potential of reaching an entire online community with the throw of a switch, metaphorically speaking, was too good to pass up.

Over the past ten years I act as chief writer and editor on a web publication for Bradford City supporters www.boyfrombrazil.co.uk, I did the same role on left field movie magazine www.foureightfours.co.uk and dabble in supporting Bradford's music scene at www.dalliance.co.uk

The Missing Link

For those readers looking to link writing to web design I urge you to consider that the number one activity online is still — and will continue for some time to be — reading text.

For a great many significant, important and major websites such as Amazon, Google or Facebook the key method of communication is unalterably short bursts of copy.

Skills with Photoshop, the ability to code front and back ends, AJAX functionality coded in JavaScript and XML. These things go to make a great website but all fail without the ability to craft words as descriptions, as instructions, as user experience.

The missing link for many websites between the production and the end user is the care that is taken in writing the text.