Town fan and TWTD reader Robert Linsdell has published his first novel, Close of Play.
Rob has been a regular home and away since 1987, usually sitting in the lower tier of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. He told TWTD about his book.
"Close of Play is my first novel. It's taken me four-and-a-half years to write, in-between working full-time and looking after a young family,” he said.
"I've been writing ever since I was a teenager but this is my first completed novel. After some polite rejections from literary agents, I decided to go through with self-publishing it as an e-book on Kindle.
"Feedback has been pretty good so far, but most of my readers have been friends and family so they may just be being polite!”
Close of Play is set at the start of the 20th Century and focuses on a young man called Harry and his best friend Walter. A gentle, loyal and book-loving young man, Harry is bewildered by his enigmatic mother, left cold by his pious, hard-working father and in awe of the best friend that he feels unable to live up to or live without.
With his friends around him, Harry finds happiness in the simple things in life — sunshine, cricket and friendship — all of which are undermined when Walter meets Hattie and discovers there is more to life than boyhood games.
Just as it seems that Harry, Walter and the boys are destined for separate paths, so WWI breaks out and propels them all into a very different world. Harry and Walter's relationship is tested to the limit and on the battlefields of The Somme, something has to give.
You can find out more about Close of Play on Facebook here and buy it here.