Question and Comments

How did you go about your research?
 

My point of departure was to locate and listen to one person, not necessarily with a huge public profile but who I knew would point me towards what I would call the inner core of the subject. For example, with Maradona there was a friend who told me I could only really begin to understand him if I went and experienced at first hand the shanty town where he was born and spent his childhood in, learnt its codes and secret alliances. With When Beckham went to Spain, I had a long lunch with someone who knew not just every personality in Real Madrid but had a detailed and objective grasp of the club's history. I also went to Manchester and talked to people who had followed Becks pretty closely there from his early days. They helped me to put Beckham in a much more interesting and wider context which went beyond the well-known tale of his celebrity status and his marriage with Posh. Apart from my university background as a student of politics, sociology, and history, I trained as an investigative journalist with the Financial Times. I also happen to love seeing good football. If I'm not in the Bernabeu or the Nou Camp, I catch up on Sky TV. When I research a book, after reading into the subject, I develop and tap as many sources as possible-from the top jobs to the ordinary fan. People have to be at the centre of any story-sometimes they help your write the book, sometimes you have to get things out of them to make a book work. The bigger the subject - Maradona, Beckham - the bigger the challenge, but what's the point of writing a book, if you haven't got something new and interesting to tell your reader, and to move him or her in some way.