YORK CITY fan has used his experience as a Bootham Crescent trainee to write a novel about a young League player facing relegation to the Conference.

Dan Wagstaffe, 31, played in City’s youth team under Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia in the early 90s, but left without a first-team appearance.

He later played for Selby Town and Garforth Town before a serious injury ended his career and he became a full-time writer.

The book, called Honey Rich, comes out next week and follows the story of Nige Honey, a talented youngster dumped by a top-flight team who struggles to come to terms with life in the lower leagues.

The novel is set in a ‘historic northern city’ and features a club ‘about the size of York City’, but despite the obvious parallels, Wagstaffe insists it isn’t about
him.

“It’s not autobiographical because I’ve never played football in the Conference or League Two,” he says. “All the characters – and the club – are fictional.

“That said, I suppose on some subconscious level there is an element of me in the protagonist. He’s a young player who was banging in the goals when he was 11 or 12 and had all these great expectations that didn’t come off.

“But I’ve also mixed in other bits and pieces so that you could say the main character has about seven or eight different players in him. Without naming names, I’ve included lots of little titbits that I’ve heard off the record.

“The book covers a lot of ground. It’s not just about what happens on the pitch and in the dressing room. It’s about what’s happening in his home life and how being a footballer impacts on that.

“This is a player who was destined for great things until an incident on a pre-season tour. He then finds himself in the lower echelons of the League, but still harbours aspirations to be a celebrity.

“Unfortunately, he no longer has the financial means to be in that world so he gets involved in crime and other scams.”

Wagstaffe says he wrote Honey Rich to explore the gulf between football’s haves and have-nots.

“I wanted to examine the tightrope players walk between success and failure,” he adds. “I remember speaking to a guy called Ben Thornley who was in the first
team at Manchester United. Now he’s a cabbie in Salford.

“He still goes to the same parties as Gary Neville and he’s still mates with Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes.

“They shared the same world for the first 20 years of their existence. Now their lives couldn’t be more different. I find that fascinating.”