Five weekends, plenty of conversations and lots of football to watch. My Foul and Fair pre-launch book tour of football tournaments came to an end on Saturday at the 72-team MAN v FAT National tournament in Telford. This was the only part of the tour that involved a significant distance to travel, but as my lads from MAN v FAT Bournemouth were taking part, at least I had plenty of company in the bar on the Friday night to make up for the four-hour journey. Let the record show the AFC Beermouth had a good tournament, qualifying from a tough group and winning their first knock out match 1-0, before going out in the round of 16. Their coach (that’s me) had a good tournament too, selling a decent number of books and having lots of good conversations about them with players from all over the country.

One of the best things about the tour was the way people reacted to hearing about Foul and Fair. The most common response to the feuding grassroots managers at the heart of the book was a chuckle of recognition – I lost count of the number of people who suggested it must be based on a true story. As an author, you want what you have written to connect with people, and after spending the summer in the company of the grassroots football community, I’m hugely encouraged that Foul and Fair is going to do that.

There’s more than just football to the book though. The main character, James, has a story arc that goes beyond the pitch, and his emotional journey is something that I hope will connect regardless of whether readers have any interest in the beautiful game. It’s a novel about rebuilding, about second chances, as James tries to get his life back on track after everything has fallen apart. Even if you don’t like football, there’s a lot there for people to identify with.

As I’ve written before, the book tour was a gamble – no one comes to a football tournament expecting to buy a book – but now that it's finished, I'm happy to say it’s been a huge success. I’ve sold more than 100 books this summer (including copies of my previous title Dead Man Singing as well as Foul and Fair), which is a brilliant start to the new book’s life. It’s also reminded me of how important the message of the book is. In the last few weeks I’ve seen grown men shouting at children after a disappointing performance, and I’ve seen children in tears because they lost a penalty shoot-out, or got knocked out earlier than they hoped. I've also seen children who have lost far more games than they've won, but who are still going home happy because they got to play football with their friends all day, or because their team finally managed to score a goal before the end of the tournament. How the children process their experience is very much influenced by the adults around them, and some people manage that better than others. By all means encourage children to play for the win, but let's also make it clear that there's more to the game than whether or not they succeed. Children should be able to enjoy the game, to enjoy learning their football, without having to absorb the all-or-nothing agenda of adults who should know better. Let them play.