People and Personalities

Buckinghamshire author and Watford fan Nick Corble has just had his first novel published, a coming of age story set against the backdrop of a remarkable Hornets season.

Watford fan Nick, who lives near Princes Risborough, has already had 14 non-fiction books published, but that first novel had seemed elusive. Until, that is, he found a set of factual events to set it against, a set of events that were part of his own experience and were very close to his heart. The result is Golden Daze.

Nick Corble

Incredibly it’s 25 years since Watford FC reached the FA Cup final after a remarkable season that also saw them playing in Europe for the first time and playing against the big names of English football in the League.

The country was going through confusing times as well. In 1983 Margaret Thatcher won a second term of office, the country had been at war in the Falklands the year before and we were on the threshold of the 1984 miners’ strike.

In the midst of this, the book’s hero Colin Westlake has just left education and, like his club and his country, is standing on the brink of something. But what, no one really knows!

It's therefore a book not just for football fans, but for anyone who's had to grow up - and if you had to grow up in the 80s it will ring even truer!

Nick told us more about the book, how the idea formed and how he got it published.

How exciting is it to see the book published?

Nick: It’s really exciting for me because it’s my first novel. I’ve had 14 other non-fiction books published so I’ve had that initial thing where you see your book for the first time before, but to have your own novel that has all come out of your own imagination is really exciting.

Tell us what Golden Daze is about?

Nick: It’s two parallel stories really. It harks back to one set of events that did happen and one set of events that didn’t. The events that did happen are the advance of Watford Football Club to the FA Cup Final in 1984 which was incredibly 25 years ago. It was an incredible season when Watford also played in Europe for the first time.

It was in many ways a coming of age for the club and that story is reflected in the story of the hero in the book, which is the fiction element. It follows him from the day of the General Election in June 1983 right through to the final at Wembley (in May 1984) and for him also it’s a coming of age.

He’s just out of education and it’s a funny time in the history of the country. We don’t quite know if the country’s going to the dogs or to the Isle of Dogs. We don’t know if we are about to have a miners’ strike and the country’s just come out of a war (The Falklands). We don’t really know what’s happening, and for somebody just out of university it’s a complex and confusing time for him too.

He doesn’t quite know what to do with the rest of his life and he can’t get a job. So the story follows him for a year through the travails of trying to get a job and trying to work out what life’s all about. The closer his team get to Wembley, the closer he gets to finding out those secrets to life, work and indeed women.

They were odd times for us as Watford fans, it was like we shouldn’t really have been there and it was all a bit living on borrowed time. And it’s a bit like that when you’re used to being a child and then suddenly you’re told you’re a man and it’s time to grow up and go out and make your own way in the world. It was a bit like that for us as Watford fans at the time.

I was going to ask where the idea came from, but you are clearly a Watford fan?

Nick: Yes I am – man and boy!

And this has been a life long thing?

Nick: I started to support them at much the time that Graham Taylor became the manager, so it was from about the late 70s onwards.

So in the story, as the hero sees Watford doing so well, does he feel that the possibilities are limitless for him too?

Nick: Yes. One of the thoughts going through his head is if they can do it, I can do it, anything’s possible. And again that was part I think of the spirit of the time amongst a certain part of the population of the UK. The possibilities were limitless really, but equally there was a bad devil on our shoulder saying that this was dreadful and that the whole of society was collapsing. We had the miners’ strike, we had the Labour party falling apart and the formation of the SDP, so these were times of transformation and not dissimilar, I suspect, to some of the experiences that people are going to have over the next year to 18 months. A lot of the certainties that we thought we had, have gone out of the window and we’re having to re-think and recalibrate what we think are the norms.

When Mrs Thatcher won her second election it was clearly an amazing achievement but there was a long time in that first administration when it was thought she didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of winning a second term because the country was falling apart. Then, after the Falklands, she was suddenly voted in on a landslide. There was almost that spirit then that we felt in 1997 with Tony Blair, certainly amongst some of the population, that this could be the beginning of something quite special but we didn’t know what and we didn’t know quite what shape it was going to take. It’s probably a bit like some of the experiences they are having in America at the moment.

The life of a football fan is very similar, you sign a new manager or lose one and you feel that the club’s on the brink of something, but you don’t quite no what, and it seems that that’s why these stories parallel so well?

Nick: Yes. I think the hero in Golden Daze takes refuge in the rhythm of the football season and for him it’s a safe comfortable pulse of life which allows him to retreat and not to confront some of those real challenges that are facing him.

The story starts in the summer, which of course is an absolute dead time for an ardent football supporter. So he leaves university and realises that he’s got to grow up, but there’s nowhere for him to go and hide because the football season hasn’t started. Then when it does, they are playing in Europe and this seems even more remarkable. But for him, he can’t get work, he’s one of the 3 million unemployed and he can’t afford to go. It’s those sorts of dilemmas and trying to reconcile them, are the crux of the book I think.

Following a side like Watford through every one of the divisions and in Europe and in play-offs, have been some of the defining moments of my life. That maybe sad but it punctuates your life I think and that’s part of what I wanted to get through the book.

I can see where the idea came from but did it just come to you – did you want to use that kind of experience?

Nick: As a writer I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I’ve had two or three goes at novels in the past but they’ve often run into the ground and I think this is a fairly common experience that people have.

What I found with this one though, is that when you have the skeleton of some real events, then the more you thought about it, the more you could actually apply the central theme of the novel to it.

So this book started off with a set of events which were real and gave me something on which to hang the story and the more I did it, the more it worked and from then on, I wouldn’t say the book wrote itself, but it had much more integrity, a rhythm and a momentum.

It had a sort of inner dynamo once I got going and everything else had to be put to one side. It had to be written, whereas in the past I started with a good idea and it would kind of get flabby in the middle and I’d keep going and then have to admit it wasn’t working. With this one though, I had to get to the end because I wanted to know how it ended.

Most of us know how it ends at Wembley, but that’s not the point. The point isn’t the journey to Wembley, it’s the journey the main character has along the way and what getting to Wembley means both to him and to the club and how those two things are in parallel.

But you have to read it to find out what happens to him?

Nick: Oh yes – I’m not going to give it away!

So, for writers who are struggling on with something, is it your tip that if you can find something that really gets you moving that’s what you have to go with?

Nick: Well it’s worked for me! I wouldn’t like to be presumptuous and say it would work for others but I’m now half way through my second novel and I’ve used the same sort of trick if you like.

The most advice given to writers is to write from experience. I think there’s a quote from someone which says that any writing which isn’t autobiography is plagiarism, whilst I wouldn’t go quite that far, if you’ve got that experience it’s much easier to write about it. However, I will stress at this point that Golden Daze isn’t an autobiography, although it is fair to say that some of the things that happen to the main character reflect my own experience.

Everything in life is an experience and as a writer you accumulate experiences you process them and they probably come out in some way along the line.

Do you think that having a set of real events that has an ending helps you work out your own ending for the character?

Nick: It’s a bit six and two threes. I’m being careful about not giving away the ending but there was part of me which asked what it meant getting to Wembley for the club and not winning – and therefore what would that mean to a person? What would be an echo of that? So, I think it did help having that (event) to formulate it, but it’s not the whole answer?

So I’ll avoid asking what that moment meant to you in case it gives it away?

Nick: Yes – I think that’s probably fair but I think it meant different things to different people. And perhaps people have had similar experiences in recent years like the recent play-off final which I took my son to. That was his first big game and the game when I managed to get him finally weaned away from Arsenal and onto Watford which had been a lifetime struggle up to then! You could just see to him that it was a magical moment.

Because Watford have had these moments, haven’t they?

Nick: Yes, following Watford has certainly always been a roller coaster ride. But I think I’d rather have that, and live in interesting times as the Chinese say. You never have a boring season – we haven’t recently! That was one of the shames about seeing Aidy go – he’s certainly given us a lot of ups and downs over the past few years.

Have you been in touch with the club about the book?

Nick: Yes, the club have been very supportive. It’s going to be featured in one of their programmes and on their Website and Richard Lee is reading it at the moment so I’m hoping he’s going to give me some thoughts on it.

It would be interesting to see if they’re thinking of celebrating the 25th anniversary in any other way, but if they don’t, I hope this is at least something towards it. I think it’s something that we should celebrate.

Who is it published by?

Nick: It’s published by Matador and it’s available through all usual bookshops and online booksellers. But I’m also making it available through my Website and I’m doing a special deal on that.

How did you get a publishing deal?

Nick: Getting a publishing deal these days is very, very difficult, especially for a novel, unless you’re a major celebrity. But it’s not totally impossible. But at the same time technology is moving at such a pace which means that going to a conventional publisher isn’t necessarily the only way of getting published.

At one extreme you’ve got straight self-publishing – finding a printer and getting a book published yourself. At the other extreme you’ve got your conventional publisher. But there are options in the middle which is what I’ve done with this one. And Troubadour who act as the umbrella for Matador are a very good option for people who feel they’ve got a novel in them and they want to have some critical editing of it. They will publish if they feel that you’ve got something there, but initially they’ll do it on quite limited print runs and I think that’s a good middle way. It allows you to get your book out there and not to fork out thousands of pounds in order to do it.

The bible for anybody looking to get anything published is of course the Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book. And Troubadour are one of three companies who are recommended by that handbook for people wanting to go down this middle way and my experience of them has been very positive.

So for people who are bombarded with information every day, how would you describe this Golden Daze in one sentence?

Nick: That’s tricky? I would describe it as a Fever Pitch for fans of clubs who never appear on Match of the Day! It’s for the unfashionable club if you like, or for anybody who has any kind of interest in football or in life, it’s not just for football fans. Or for anybody who wants to hark back to the 1980s and the times that we were going through then. That’s a bit more than one sentence, isn’t it?!

But for those who don’t follow football it’s still a story about a person?

Nick: Definitely, this is a coming of age story so it should resonate with anybody who’s ever grown up so hopefully that’s most people!

And also for those who remember the 80s with huge affection and a little embarrassment, you’ll recognise life as well?

Nick: Yes, I’ve tried not to make the references overt but they are there. Sometimes I say this book is for anybody who remembers Jimmy Hill, boob tubes, the SDP, ra ra skirts and Captain Sensible singing Happy Talk which seemed a pretty odd thing for him to be doing! But it was a time when anything could happen and anything was acceptable and a bit more exciting perhaps than the rather straight laced times that we seem to be having now.

They say it was the decade that taste forgot but there’s nothing wrong with that is there?

Nick: Yes – we were young and we enjoyed it!