My only claim to literary uniqueness is that as far as I know I’m the only person to write books on the completely unrelated topics of musical history and rugby. Unrelated? Perhaps from where you stand, but not from here. Both were essentially about how human agency makes history. I must admit, in the case of my book Riverball! there was a simple pleasure in being able to interview actual people, rather than read cryptic references to them in Latin manuscripts.

Although I’d never played to any level (like most musicians, I was busy at the critical stage of my life) I’d got a passion for fast and inventive rugby when I was in New Zealand. I missed that sense of play in the English game, but then I read about a small club a few miles from where I lived, up in the Yorkshire Dales. Not only did Wharfedale play in National League 1, but they did so with a fast-and-loose style: one reporter wrote that the club was a ‘bargain basement Toulouse’. I needed to see this. As I recall Wharfedale were playing one of the historic London clubs on my first visit – it may have been Rosslyn Park – and I just couldn’t get my head around what a small Dales village side was doing playing at this level. How come? The club’s rise had all happened since the Second World War, and a few of those who had fuelled the rocket were still around: I just thought the story of the chemistry they had created deserved to be known. So in 2014-15 Caroline and I followed the club around the country each weekend: between times I interviewed the characters, and wrote up the story of the season and the history of the club.

Despite Alan Pearney, editor of Rugby World, writing that Riverball! was ‘simply one of the best rugby books I've ever read’, it was never box office. And that’s fine. It was received well by those for who it was a gift. And it was a gift which I enjoyed giving. New copies of the book can still be bought from the Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, and used ones from AbeBooks. Since Riverball! I’ve risen to the dizzy heights of being programme editor for the club.