IT HAS taken him 37-years but last night author Nick Hornby finally faced up to his fears and came to Swindon.

The 48-year-old writer of books including Fever Pitch and Hi-Fidelity was at the Arts Centre as part of the Swindon Literature Festival.

But before he could begin he had something he needed to get of his chest in 1969 Swindon Town beat his beloved Arsenal 3-1 in the League Cup at Wembley and it left him feeling less than friendly towards the town.

Nick was just 11 at the time on his first visit to a national stadium, with his dad.

For the one time teacher Swindon was forever associated with feelings of betrayal.

"A third division team had beaten a first division team and my father thought it was his duty to stand up and applaud," he recalled. I was shocked rigid. I felt miserable enough without him standing up and applauding."

His first book Fever Pitch, an autobiographical novel about life as an Arsenal fan was an instant success and later made into a film. Asked about its success he said: "I knew that it spoke for an awful lot of people that hadn't been recognised before."

Touching on Hi-Fidelity, a book about an obsessive record collector he revealed: "The music part came right at the end. I wanted to write about relationships. Then right at the end I thought, well what job am I going to give him?"

Both About A Boy and Hi-Fidelity were not kept strictly to the books when they were turned into films but Nick has been pleased with the results.

As was perhaps to be expected many of the questions from the public were football related.

Asked about the closure of Arsenal's ground Highbury, he said with a smile: "It might feel like the end of one particular chapter of my life but I have got a season ticket for next year."

And on the influx of foreign players to the English game he said: "I have never understood the argument about foreign players. It absolutely doesn't bother me in the slightest."

He also spoke of his mission to get people to stop reading books they feel they should but do not really want to.

"Every time you read a bit that you're not enjoying because you think you should you're building up a little bit of resistance for next time. If it's going really slowly stop."

And with that his other mission to exorcise the demon of Swindon was done, "I feel I've broken the voodoo now," he said.