Former AFC Sudbury media man Steve Screech discusses book debut ‘Stories From A Lost Season’ charting Covid-19 aborted 2020/21 campaign

What’s it like behind the scenes at a non-league football club? But more than that, how did volunteer-reliant clubs deal with the biggest attack to their existence they had come under since World War 2?

Those are the questions which AFC Sudbury’s former head of media, Steve Screech, looks to address in his candid memoir of the stop-start, and eventually aborted, 2020/21 season that was the second lost in non-league to the Covid-19 pandemic.

And unlike the first, in 2019/20, which had been happily winding its way towards a conclusion following the turn of the year, this one was always under a massive cloud of doubt.

‘Stories From A Lost Season’ was never meant to have turned out the way it did, though, as Screechy, as he was fondly known by so many inside and outside the club, explains.

“I’d been looking to write a book for a while and life felt like it was about to move from one chapter to the next; I was closing in on my divorce being finalised, my father had just died and I’d settled into life with my new partner,” said the 58-year-old.

“Driving home from visiting my mother, who was adjusting to life without Dad, it came to me that now I’d go all in with AFC Sudbury by not renewing my Crystal Palace season ticket and that I’d document the following season as part of that process.

“For the next 13 months, for better or for worse, I decided to record all that went on both at the club and in my own life.

“I didn’t of course know how things would pan out, and had I known then with the pandemic laying the season low, I’d probably have waited another season. But as it was, it was an interesting period to document.”

The 317-page book begins laying the scene with a chapter entitled ‘A summer of uncertainty’ which as well as explaining how a former computer games designer - award-winning Kick Off 2 his masterpiece - ended up so heavily involved at AFC Sudbury, contains the excitement of pre-season training returning in small groups, each with a separate coach.

The book covers Screech’s dealings, camera in tow, of following all the club’s teams, including the then Mark Morsley-managed men’s first team. It aptly finishes up with the new dawn of joint successors Rick Andrews and Angelo Harrop taking charge of their first competitive match in a season which took the club to a BBC-televised FA Cup first round proper home tie with professional neighbours Colchester United ahead of promotion in the following campaign.

Screech, who relocated to Devon, where his mum lives, in the summer, initially keeping his website work in his Sudbury role going ahead of becoming Barnstaple’s head of media, said: “It’s taken me three years to decide to publish and to edit and re-edit and re-re-edit.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to get it out there but now having left the club I felt it needed to see the light of day as Sudbury was a club that I had given my all for over my time there (five to six years) and it had also given me some incredible memories.”

The most surprising aspect of his book is - for a man who people will instantly recollect with a camera around his neck - there are zero images included.

Screech, whose son Cameron now volunteers as AFC Subury men’s photographer, said: “It would have been nice to have included a decent amount of images from the period covered in the book but the book was already running at 317 pages in a pretty small font just to get it down in size.

“I am toying with the idea of adding a website dedicated to the book that has images that could and maybe should have made it into the book but we shall see. If the demand is there then I’ll do it.”

He added: “I hope that the book will appeal to non-league fans, anyone with even a tenuous link to the club or to any fans of my computer games.”

Anyone wanting to get a signed copy can email screech@btinternet.com for one to be done and sent out direct. Alternatively, the paperback (£10.99) or Kindle (£7.94) versions are now available via Amazon.co.uk