Blythe Smart Publications

​The Wow  Factor (Edition 1):

A Concise History of Early Soccer and The Men Who Made It.

ISBN: 0-9545017-0-5     478 pages     size 240 x 170     £17.95     (2003)

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Contents - These are the same as those shown below in Edition 2

This first effort to produce a book was not straightforward to say the least, and one might ask where do you start? Having visited all of the League football grounds including iconic venues such as Anfield, Old Trafford, Villa Park and Roker Park with many others in the Conference and Ryman leagues, the original idea was clear, to write about the history of clubs and their grounds. This was undertaken at the start of the new millennium and the text eventually filled five ring-binder folders, however Football Grounds of Britain by Simon Inglis had already taken that niche in some detail, and publishers such as Collins Willow stated that, "the time for this kind of historic book has already passed."

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In the meantime the provisional book had an introduction about the Victorian founders of the game, and their histories were so interesting that this then became the main basis of the book. Without being able to secure a publisher the only way forward was to do it yourself, but this was a daunting task and one had heard many stories of disasters in this respect. One particular tale was of someone keen on railway engines with much expertise who published a book about his specialist subject after encouragement from friends, but was then left with two thousand copies rotting in the garage that no one wanted!

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This was clearly a salutary warning, and in the days before digital printing there were few printers who would do small runs, and the minimum was generally 500 copies. This amount clearly involved a great investment, and then there was the problem of how to get the books into a bookshop. Despite such apprehensions the project went ahead, and we found a typesetter and printer who was newly set up near Hailsham in a restored pig pen! The next problem was producing the work in a suitable format, since not everyone had embraced the new technologies that were changing the face of the earth.

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As a result the book was written on an old-fashioned word processor that only held so much text and clogged up when printing, while one time all was lost due to a poor backup. The printers then converted it to the right format and inserted any pictures which meant there was a lack of design control. One of the main ideas was to punctuate it in the style of Football Grounds of Britain which used short sentences, but with a one view screen to look at this caused problems down the line.

Likewise there was a move from London to the Isle of Wight staying with a friend in temporary accommodation as the book came out. This friend was in fact an editor and writer for Disney and when he saw the proof, his eyebrows raised, due to an excess of punctuation. He also told the story of a publisher who had a great business idea for a book, but due to poor proof reading it came out, "How to be a Commerical Success." Meanwhile it was far too late to change anything at this stage.

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Despite such problems the book was quite successful and there was a book launch at Ottakars in Portsmouth with the author in Victorian dress, an appearance with Peter White on Radio Solent as “Football’s Coming Home” rang out, a three piece article featuring Arthur Pember (on the cover) in the Family Tree Magazine, and a top ten position in the Independent due to continual sales at Sportspages on Charing Cross Road. Some reviewers refused to do a piece due to the punctuation and others were particularly rude and cast aspersions on the education system, which was grossly unfair since they criticised without having all the facts. This reminded me of an English master at school who said one of the pitfalls of writing was over-punctuating, although many others looked past these idiosyncracies to the information and intent.