By STEVE MASCORD
DAVE Thorpe, I’m buying you a Kindle.
What is the worst thing that can happen to an author at his book launch? Perhaps being served with libel papers requiring the entire print run to be pulped?
OK, what’s the NEXT worst thing that can happen?
How about getting someone’s name wrong all the way through a book and having that person – unaware of the gaffe – show up to the launch, hand you 14 quid and ask you to sign a copy.
I can tell you, there were plenty of anxious looks towards the front door of Philip Howard Books in Leeds on September 5 when I was launching Touchstones.
Things had started well enough. The first person to show up, some two-and-a-quarter hours before the launch was due to start, was Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington. He bought a book, chatted, even provided the assembled group with flapjacks and teacakes.
Then in sauntered Stuart Sheard, a long-time servant of the game who I accompanied to France during the compilation of Touchstones last December. He handed over the cash, I wrote in his book, something like: “Please don’t sue for any inaccuracies”.
He responded: “I won’t but Dave Thorpe might. This caption calls him Dave Sharp.” Points to the photo pages. Stomach sinks. I rifle for the index. There are several mentions of Dave Sharp, not one of Dave Thorpe.
Dave was the man who contacted this upstanding organ offering to include me on his trip to France along with Stuart and Graham Sykes after I wrote a column about not having any games to attend in the middle of what was, in most places, the off-season, last year.
He bailed me out and helped me keep my 52-games-in-52-weeks pledge and his reward was to have his name wrong throughout the book (and, for memory, a drink placed on a wonky table land in his lap. They were the only trousers he had all weekend).
“He’ll probably come today,” Sheard says cheerily. Oh Gawd, I hope not!
As is the way these days, there was an opportunity to turn embarrassment into “content”. We could Facebook Live Dave’s arrival, my humiliating admission and perhaps me going through the book with Tipp-ex correcting his surname.
It might even go viral.
I’d like to thank the likes all the colleagues, friends and readers who showed up that afternoon – if I name a few of you, I risk offending others – but most of all I’d like to thank Dave for not showing up.
Just as we made a number of corrections between the Australian and UK editions of Touchstones, so we will be making further improvements before the book comes out on Kindle.
If there are any further print runs – perhaps when the movie comes out – Dave’s name will also be correctly rendered.
But Dave Thorpe will make a belated debut in the ereader edition of Touchstones, which we may release to co-incide with the kick-off of the World Cup final or some such other milestone.
And I plan to make sure Dave has a Kindle by then.
