Sports Editor’s Blog: So long Melton Times, don’t be a stranger

After 14-and-a-half years as sports editor of the Melton Times, I’m about to head off into the sunset for pastures new, or to be more accurate, pastures as yet unspecified.

It would be highly unoriginal of me to compare the timespan at the helm with the sentence for a serious criminal offence.

And notwithstanding a few uncomfortable moments not fit for publication here, the comparison is not entirely fitting either.

I’m not going to try to recap a near decade-and-a-half – it would take at least three entire editions and lose readers faster than panic-soaked shoppers can strip a supermarket aisle of toilet rolls and tinned goods.

In fact I’ve no real idea how I’m going to write this, but I guess I should fall back on writing basics and go back to the start.

Walking into the Melton Times newsroom of 2005 was not my finest moment.

After a fitful and angst-interrupted sleep, I arrived in a busy, bustling newsroom for my first day as a dedicated sports journalist sleep-deprived and a little nervy.

Five years of experience as a cub-turned-senior reporter seemed to evaporate as I laboured to knock together my first phone interview – with a veteran ladies’ darts player – into legible copy.

But thanks to friendly, supportive colleagues, not least my editor Michael Cooke and predecessor, Colin Moulds, I was soon able to relax enough to remember how to write a story.

My first back-page splash that week gave me a good hint as to the calibre of the patch I’d arrived in.

On my second day in the job, I was asked to interview young county cricketers Stuart Broad and Luke Wright about earning a place in the England Academy.

Ah, whatever happened to them?

Within the month, I was on the phone to Leicester Tigers’ lock Louis Deacon at an England rugby training camp, and had covered a then 17-year-old Paul Anderson’s move to Liverpool FC.

These proved to be no flukes.

Over the years, the well continued to overflow with remarkable stories and achievements, not to mention huge events.

It seemed the borough was groaning under the weight of prospective and actual national and international athletes, from a ridiculous array of sports.

Many is the time I asked what exactly they put in the water around here.

It’s no coincidence I chose to have a family here.

Having been brought up in the rarified – if occasionally a trifle smelly – air of Melton borough, I fully expect my four-year-old to one day lead England out at Lord’s.

But perhaps the most special thing about working here has been how proactive the sporting community is, and how willing it’s been to share its stories.

At my previous paper, you had to use coercion just shy of gunpoint to persuade the public to send in an under 12s football report.

Here people were queuing up. I felt among like-minded, sport-loving friends.

Times have changed of course, in so many ways.

Things have quietened as the press battles to adapt to an industry evolving at breakneck speed.

But yet still the interest and passion remains. From both you and I.

My love of good journalism, for sport, and for writing about Melton has not really changed.

The job – if scribbling about sport deserves the description – has been a privilege, and I have no hesitation or coyness in saying that.

I know come the first Monday morning when the alarm doesn’t go off at an ungodly hour, reality will hit and I will feel rudderless.

Or when a Tuesday doesn’t involve tapping away long into the evening, coming home for a quick food and sleep pitstop, before returning early the next morning to beat the Wednesday afternoon deadline.

The job can be highly pressurised, but stress and its adrenalin offshoot are addictive, even good for us in small doses, and there’ll be cold turkey to come.

If I’m found rocking back and forth in a dusty corner of the dining room at 1pm on Wednesday, my wife is under strict instructions to sit me in front of a laptop and give me a 500-word lead to knock out in half-an-hour.

There are aspects of the job after 14 years I won’t miss.

If the truth be told, mental burnout began to set in a while ago, and I’m certain a short break will get me firing again.

But to repeat what I said at the sports awards, there are many things I will miss enormously.

Writing about sport, particularly in Melton, the privilege of having your trust to tell so many wonderful stories, and the many contacts and few good friends I’ve made along the way.

And there are so many stories I’ve started, but won’t get to finish – at least for the Melton Times.

Leaving a month before the end of a football season is just plain wrong.

And weeks before my favourite time of the year, the start of a cricket summer.

A few of you have asked to keep in touch. Please feel free to ask me for my personal email address, sport-related or otherwise.

I’ve no plans to leave the area, not until the boy has made a first-class century at least, and I still hope to keep writing about sport as a freelance for as long as possible until the bank manager intervenes.

So I hope this is not the end, that our paths will cross again.

See, when it comes to goodbyes, I’m still rubbish.