I was sure that there was a good story here with plenty of comedy. I knew that I would enjoy writing it. My wife, Heather, felt that this would make a worthwhile piece of family history. But I quickly realised that I was doing something that no one has ever done before. I was writing about a child’s life in grassroots and academy football from the point of view of a parent – and I was writing in the analytical manner of a lawyer, with anecdotes from my time at the Bar fitting in quite naturally. So, I decided to exacerbate the parental content, setting out how I felt at different stages, in order to create a book that shows parents the reality of their child being in grassroots football and at a professional football club’s academy. The story is ostensibly about my son’s time in football, but what this book is really about is parenting and justice – with education and athletics forming sub-plots. You don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy reading PREZ.

Writing the comic scenes was fun but the darker scenes, later in the book, were more difficult for me because, as readers of PREZ will see from the way in which I convey my thoughts, I experienced genuine anger at what had gone on. I had to emphasise the absurdity of academy football so as to curb my natural desire to be indignant.

I wanted the book to show that it takes a special child to come out of academy football unscathed. In part, it’s a warning to parents of would-be footballers. Showing that Prez, in his own way, had triumphed over adversity was important. Yet I started writing before knowing what the end would turn out to be. Ultimately, Prez’s self-belief supplied the ending and the FA provided me with the perfect epilogue. But I had no idea of that when I began.