S is for Stoneleigh Swifts.

I wanted James’ team, the Stoneleigh Swifts, to be like a character in Foul and Fair. Like any other significant character, the team had to have its own narrative arc, something that would enable the reader to see how they change over the course of the book. Different football teams have different personalities, and I had a clear sense of the team that I wanted them to become.

Part of my world-building for Foul and Fair was establishing the Swifts, both as a collective and as a group of individuals who made up that whole. Who are the cocky ones? who is insecure? Who is both of those things? In coaching just as much as in fiction, understanding that is as important as what individuals are like on the pitch. Some of the players’ on-field profiles were – very loosely – based on particular players that I knew, but I steered well away from basing too much of the off-field natures on real individuals. I was very aware that these were children, and it felt intrusive and unfair, even inappropriate, to put any of them onto the pages of a work of fiction. Although real people may have provided a starting point for some of the fictional players, they were only a starting point: none of the players in Foul and Fair are directly based on specific people.

A lot of non-writers seem to think that characters must be ‘based on’ a particular person, and I would argue that that's a misunderstanding. I’ve written before about how Kieran is an amalgam of multiple (in my opinion) misguided coaches, but definitely not based on any single person. Even when there is a real person who prompts a particular character, at some point the fictional creation takes on a critical mass, dictating how they react to situations and departing from the real-life starting point. The character comes to life in the author’s imagination and leaves their counterpart behind. It can be misleading and unhelpful to read the fictional as being a representation of the real.

If any of my old players think they recognise themselves in the members of the Stoneleigh Swifts team, I hope they like what they see. If you like how ‘you’ are portrayed, that’s great. If you don’t, then please don’t be offended; any negative character traits have come from my imagination rather than anything you did in real life. It’s not you! And if anyone thinks they might be part of the inspiration for Kieran, then maybe it’s worth taking a long, hard look at yourself and how you go about coaching kids.