Gloucestershire Gazette sports editor Keith Watson has turned his hand to short story writing to contribute to what he hopes will be a bestseller back in his native North East.

Keith, (26), has written a piece for an anthology of short stories about his favourite football team – Sunderland AFC.

The book, entitled 24 Hour SAFC People, contains 24 stories from different authors based on some aspect of their support for the club.

Keith, who grew up in the Sunderland area and went to his first match at Roker Park aged just four-and-a-half, chose to write about his experiences at school and sixth form in Newcastle for the book.

He said: “The rivalry between Sunderland and Newcastle is as big as any derby rivalry in world football and I spent seven years at school in the wrong city as far as I was concerned.

“The Kevin Keegan era, during which Newcastle were far more successful than Sunderland, happened in its entirety in this time and gave me a lot to write about.”

The book has been published by the well-established Sunderland fanzine A Love Supreme, which Keith wrote regularly for both before and after joining the Gazette as a news reporter in 2003.

He added: “The lads at the fanzine asked for Sunderland fans to write something on any thread relating to the football club.

“I’d written a lot for the fanzine but there is something special about being published in a book, so I sent them my story and it was good enough to make it in.

“A couple of the other stories take the Mackem (a native of Sunderland) in Newcastle line but they don’t have much crossover with my entry, so hopefully, along with the rest of the book, it will be a good read.”