I was in the right place at the right time.

I was given a valuable backstage pass to this magical period, as a chronicler of some of the most important moments of it, with wild protagonists, whether in music, entertainment, fashion, football, art, or politics.

I had front row seats to this crazy decade, but 1996 was the incredible peak of the era. Oasis at Maine Road and Knebworth, the birth of Robbie Williams as a solo artist and the Spice Girls, the Euro 96 football tournament and ‘Three Lions’, the rise of New Labour and Tony Blair.

I was there for it all.

1996. Britpop dominated the airwaves. Tabloid newspapers shaped reality long before Instagram. Football finally came home. Tony Blair was learning to play rock star – and rock stars were learning they could play politics. Everyone celebrated fiercely, and Britain was the coolest place in the world.

Showbiz journalist Dominic Mohan was not watching the party from afar – he was inside the room.

Backstage at Knebworth with Oasis. In strip clubs with Robbie Williams. On the phone with Bowie. At the source of gossip about the Spice Girls, Gallagher’s partying, and tabloid chaos. From the joy of Euro ’96 to the anarchic Brits Awards, from rave culture to New Labour, Mohan witnessed the moment when the United Kingdom transformed from a rusty indie island into a global cultural power.

Part memoir, part cultural self-examination, and part revolutionary journey through the 90s and their greatest year, 1996 offers an incredible front-row view of this madness, music, football, and politics that reshaped Britain – and created legends along the way.

Three decades later, Mohan returns to the year everything peaked and asks: what the hell happened, why did it matter, and can it ever happen again?

If you were there – this book will feel like coming home.

If you weren’t – you’ll wish you had been.