Michael Jago read Ancient History and Philosophy at University College Oxford before settling in the USA in 1980. For 15 years he ran an educational travel business, specialising in the battlefields of western Europe and operated the American College of Travel in Los Angeles. When he sold his travel business in 1995 he launched a football magazine that grew from its California base to be published in several states across the southwestern and midwestern USA. After acquiring a further degree as a (very) mature student at Oxford, he has adopted the writing of biography as his career.