FIXED IT!
The slightest of things but I think because I copied and pasted the code from the tutorial (Which admitedly it said don’t do!) the quotes surrounding the link were not like proper double quotes – they were at an angle.
That could have taken a lot longer to figure out, but i realised that when i changed the theme back to default it worked again so it was nothing that i had changed elsewhere!
Yeah that’s helped alot, many thanks. I’ve just about settled on PATHINFO permalinks as it’s giving me the structure I want albeit with “index.php” in the middle.
Still going to try and get it working without the “index.php” part in the middle (just because I’m a perfectionist!). I’m back on track though and should be able to work it out from here in so thanks for that!