All things Football and Poetry

An Interview with Julie McNeill

Join us as Julie McNeill, author of We Are Scottish Football, takes part in our series of quick-fire Q&As!

What is a quick-fire Q&A?

We have our interviewee pick a number at random and we ask them the general question listed next to it.

Shortly after we switch to asking book-specific questions, to give you a brief insight into our wonderful writers and their books.

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If you could spend the day in anyone’s shoes, who would it be?

Oh god, that’s a huge question for the first one. It would be nice to be Steve Clarke at the moment. Well…although there would be a lot of pressure

I’ve got literary heroes, you know, that you would like to meet and spend a day in their shoes. So, someone like Margaret Atwood. I would have loved to have met legends of the literary world. It’d be lovely just to sit in a room with them.

Have you always wanted to be an author?

I was in a school yesterday doing a little workshop and one of the young people asked me that question and it was lovely to be able to say yes, that's what I wanted to do when I was your age.

Now, that's not what happened. Obviously, because life took over. You know, when I was younger, I went to university. I stopped writing when I was at university because I did English literature and it kind of took the joy out of it for me. So it's been a bit of a long process.

I actually didn't get back into writing properly until I had my children sort of 12/13 years ago.  It was lovely to think back at that. It's really nice to actually be in a position where I can say, yeah, I'm doing the thing that I dreamt about when I was young.

What is your favourite writing snack/drink?

Well, depends on the time of day.

I quite like writing in busy places. I know some people like quiet for writing, but I quite like writing in cafes and in libraries and out and about because I like listening into conversations and being inspired by people interacting. I've spent a lot of time in cafes. I’m partial to a croissant in the morning or maybe a chocolate muffin in the afternoon.

If I am on my own at night then it's a cool glass of rose wine, I'm afraid.

In what ways do you think you've changed as a writer since writing this book?

I just feel incredibly lucky, it's 12 or 13 years ago I joined a writer's group and it's the best thing I have ever done. It was really to give me a bit of confidence. I wasn't writing a huge amount at that point, because I'd heard horror stories about writer's groups. But I met this brilliantly supportive group of people who encouraged me to write and keep writing and I just wouldn't have done it without them.

As I've wrote more and performed more, you know, I started to build up this great group of people around me, including some other authors who are now Luath authors, who I felt I could send my work to. They had a good trusting eye and that has been the difference for me.

I love to have that relationship and this book has been part of that because, partly, I wanted to make sure I've got all the research right since it's part research and part writing from my own experience. There were lots of people around me who were historians or experts in their fields. It was lovely to be able to work collaboratively.

What is your favourite thing about living in Scotland?

Oh, I love loads of things. I wasn't born in Scotland. I was born in Carlisle to Scottish parents and Scottish grandparents. I always… I spent every summer here and you know most of my life was in Scotland and Carlisle is a border town. We were just five minutes away really. But as soon as I could, I moved to Scotland myself.

I was only 17 and I got the train from Carlisle up to Glasgow and I just stayed. I loved Scotland because I love the Scottish people, I just love the banter. I love the camaraderie. I love the way that they interact with each other. But Glasgow, for me, just felt like I'd lived there in a previous life.

The joy of writing this book has been writing a kind of love story to Glasgow, a love story to the heritage of Glasgow and the history that is hidden and lost within the city walls.

What emotional reaction do you expect people to have to the book?

What would be nice is if people connect it.

What I've tried to do in the poems is connect to the kind of human stories of each. Even if I'm writing about the history of a site, I've tried to find a human connection, whether that's in my children or family or something to do with the site and trying to connect to the emotion of it. I hope that that comes across.

I hope that people can connect to the emotion of the poems, that I'm not just retelling these histories or educating. It'd be lovely if it brought poetry to new audiences as well. It'd be lovely if there was people that engaged with poetry for the first time, or through writing about something a wee bit different.

Why did you choose the title you did?

The title is one of the poems.

‘We are Scottish Football’ was a poem that was commissioned by the BBC two years ago. The start of the football season 22/23, they asked me to write a poem and to speak to fans to find out about lots of things that they love about football. I tried to tie them all together in this poem.

We are that kind of collective like the things that we are because we're football fans and I loved doing that. I think that was the thing that was a bit of a catalyst for me because I could work with lots of other different people.

When I was thinking about the title of the book, that one just jumped out at me as it seemed to encapsulate all of the history. These are all the things that have happened. These are all things that have made us. But also, these are all the things that are going on just now and that we're looking forward to.

If you were to summarise the book in five words, what would they be?

Poetry, passion, photography, celebration and dejection

What was your favourite thing about writing the book?

I love the research. This is the first kind of research project I've done. Usually I write poems just about things that sort of pop into my head or things I feel passionately about.

Half of it is kind of poems that have happened organically over the last five or six years when I've been writing about football. But the football Square mile part of the book was a lovely one to deep dive into and I really enjoyed the research.

I enjoyed the stories and finding out things that I didn't know, visiting the sites, being in the spaces and imagining the history of them.

The other thing that I really loved was working with Campbell. He had such an interest and an artistic take on each because he got the manuscript first, the photographs came after. Instead of just going on to these sites and snapping a picture of each of them, he really dug into the poem. That was amazing. It gave another layer to the whole thing. It’s a beautiful thing to look at and to have I think as well as just being a poetry book. Working with Campbell, I think and the kind of research element with the two, giving you two rather than one.

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We Are Scottish Football is out now!