A weekly editor recalled the “glory days” of his hometown football club as he prepared to bow out after 44 years in the industry.
Clive Joyce, left, is leaving the Kidderminster Shuttle at the end of this month after 21 years at the helm.
His career began in 1969 when he joined his home town paper, the Hereford Times, after leaving school.
During his ten years there, Clive saw the local football team, Hereford united, climb from the Southern League to the old Second Division, via an epic FA Cup run in 1972 when they beat Newcastle.
Clive, who is taking early retirement at the age of 62,looked back on his career in a first person piece published in the Shuttle last week.
He said of his time at Hereford: “It seems incredible now, given the clubs’ respective places in football’s pecking order, but I covered United when they played Chelsea in league games in 1976-77!
“That season we were also playing Southampton, Hull, Wolves, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, and Blackburn. How fortunes change in football?”
“Since coming to Kidderminster I have also had some great times with Harriers, and going to Wembley twice and winning promotion to the Football League have provided some memorable moments for The Shuttle to be involved with.”
Added Clive: “Being a local newspaper editor is a privileged position that puts you at the centre of everything that goes on in a community and it has been rewarding to steer a paper that has such a special place in the hearts of Wyre Forest people.
“A local newspaper needs the backing of its community and I am grateful to so many people who have supported the paper and me personally in my time as editor.”
“We have embraced many changes but digital technology, in particular, has revolutionised the way we work and brought new ways of communicating with people.
“The development of our website and social media alongside our print edition means we are now reaching more people than ever before in The Shuttle’s 144-year history and I see that as a great achievement.”
The editor’s job now goes to Paul Walker, deputy editor at the Shuttle from 1989-1999, who becomes group editor of The Shuttle and its sister papers at Stourbridge, Halesowen, Dudley, Redditch, Bromsgrove and Droitwich.
Clive’s departure marks the end of an era for the Shuttle in more ways than one. HTFP reported earlier this month that the paper’s offices are likely to close with its journalists based in future at Stourbridge.
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Stourbridge & Kiddy have never liked each other. It will be war! But seriously…once gain, NQ, how on earth can you conceivably run a relevant local newspaper in Kidderminster from an office in Stoubridge & a subbing hub in Newport? Clive must be heartbroken. Join the club, my friend!
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Once more a long-serving and loyal employee is one way or another shown the door. The way that the management of the regional press operates these days is brutal, thoughtless and extraordinarily greedy. They’re stripping the assets that the asset-strippers of the past never realised existed.
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I bet this wasnt his choice to retire early…strange how it comes just shortly after Knowledge is introduced in the paper.
The new system bulldozer continues wreaking destruction across NQ titles with no thought to the personal damage caused to many.
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The unrelenting bulldozer that is Knowledge continues its merry journey across NQ. Destroying lives in its wake.
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So dies the Kidderminster Shuttle, one a truly great local newspaper. One that was so in tune with its readership that it got an independent MP elected to Parliament. No dedicated editor, no local office. Still, at least it’s a relatively swift execution.
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Good luck Clive. Enjoy your ‘retirement’
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Probably the greatest achievement during Clive’s tenure at the Shuttle was the campaign to stop the downgrading of Kidderminster Hospital’s A&E.
The paper gleaned more than 60,000 signatures within weeks and the campaign led to the election of Dr Richard Taylor, the first MP to be elected on a local issue for at least a generation.
It was arguably the story of the 2001 general election.
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