Hollywood agreed. They landed an agent in Los Angeles. Studios were interested.

Then, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Overnight, nobody wanted a Cold War thriller. The conflict was over. Peace had won. The screenplay became irrelevant. It went into a drawer, where it sat for 38 years.

"I never forgot about it," said Gorman, now 76. "But I thought its moment had passed."

He was wrong.

As Cold War tensions returned in the 2020s, Gorman realized the story wasn't dated - it was prophetic. He pulled the screenplay out and spent two years turning it into "Offsides," a thriller that asks: What if peace had succeeded?

The novel is set in July 1987. In an unprecedented gesture during glasnost, the Soviet Union challenges the Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos to a football game on the Fourth of July. Soviet coach Valery Medved - still haunted by the "Miracle on Ice" defeat - gets two years to build a team using the entire Soviet sports empire: Olympic wrestlers, world-class sprinters, hockey stars.

The game is scheduled. The world is watching.

But not everyone in Moscow wants glasnost to succeed. Soviet hardliners launch a conspiracy to sabotage the game before it can happen. Mike Larsen, a disgraced former Raiders quarterback now covering sports for the Denver Post, stumbles onto the plot and races to stop it.

"What made this story unique then - and now - is that it's told almost entirely from the Soviet perspective," Gorman explained. "American Cold War thrillers usually feature American heroes fighting Soviet villains. I wanted to show the humanity on the other side. Soviet athletes seeking glory, coaches seeking redemption, people caught between loyalty to their country and hope for something different."

The novel follows Medved's impossible mission to build a competitive team in two years, the athletes who risk everything to compete, and Larsen's desperate race to save the game when he discovers the sabotage plot.

"I didn't want villains and heroes," Gorman said. "I wanted people trying to navigate impossible choices during a brief window when anything seemed possible."

The irony isn't lost on him that the story is more relevant now than when he and Trimble first conceived it.

Reedsy Discovery gave the novel a five-star "Must Read" designation, calling it "a fast-paced Cold War thriller that blends football and espionage into one gripping story." Readers' Favorite awarded it five stars as well.

Gorman is no stranger to long journeys and stories about difficult choices. His memoir "Into Trouble" chronicles his 1969 imprisonment in Franco's Spain after fleeing the United States as a draft dodger. His second memoir, "Running Down a Dream," documents the creation of his documentary "Ride the Sky." His documentaries have screened at film festivals across North America and Europe.

"Offsides" is his first published novel at age 76, though he's quick to point out it's technically his second - the first just took 38 years to make the journey from screenplay to book.

"Sometimes stories have to wait for their moment," he said. "I just didn't expect mine to take four decades."

The novel is available now on Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats.

Amazon Link: Click Here

CONTACT:

Paul Gorman

raincitycinema@gmail.com

###