F is for Football, which has an endless capacity for providing the kind of real-life storylines which a writer would think twice about making up. F is also Fulham, my team and one with an important but under-the-radar role in Foul and Fair.

Authors are often asked where they get their characters’ names from. In Foul and Fair, there are a lot of incidental characters, as well as locations, who take their names from former Fulham players, particularly from our lower division days in the early 1990s. Deputy Head John Marshall, Hayley’s PC colleague Martin Pike and even Detective Sergeant Julianne (Julian) Hails are just a few of the many instances of me dipping into my footballing memories when naming characters.

One of my favourite Fulham references in the book comes when a taxi customer asks to be taken to the Cullip Industrial Estate. Danny Cullip came to Fulham as a no-nonsense teenage centre-back, just in time for the Micky Adams-led promotion season of 1996-97 (still one of my very favourite years as a supporter). Danny Cullip was one of those players who fans love: rough  and ready, technically limited but ferocious in the tackle and fiercely committed. When Mohamed Al Fayed bought the club and replaced Micky Adams with the managerial team of Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins, Cullip and several of his team mates soon dropped down the pecking order as more expensive, polished replacements were brought in.

Fast forward to a Tuesday night in December 1997. Fulham are playing Burnley and it’s a less-than-exhilarating 0-0 draw. Danny Cullip is among the substitutes, and a voice somewhere behind me on the Hammersmith End starts singing:

‘On the first day of Christmas my true-love gave to me, Danny Cu-u-u-lip.’

More voices joined as the song continued: ‘On the second day of Christmas my true-love gave to me, two Danny Cullips and a Danny Cu-u-u-lip.’

And so it went on; soon the whole of the Hammersmith End was belting out the Cullipified lyrics. We went all the way to the twelfth day of Christmas, with twelve Danny Cullips counting down to one, which was immediately followed by a fresh chant, a variation on a traditional football homage to a favourite player: ‘Twelve Danny Cullips, there’s only twelve Danny Cullips’. It was one of those perfect, spontaneous, terrace moments.

Whether it was connected to the song or not, Danny Cullip was indeed brought on as a sub that night. In the 89th minute, Fulham won a corner, and who do you think rose to head the ball home and earn Fulham a 1-0 win? A writer would think twice about sending the ball to that particular close-cropped head, but football went above and beyond the believable into you-couldn’t-make-it-up territory. Danny Cullip (for it was he) provided the perfect final scene.

And the postscript to that moment of Christmas wonder? Danny Cullip never played for Fulham again. That headed goal was, I think, his last touch of the ball in Fulham’s first team. Real life is where the magic happens.