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Regional daily marks 10 years since last Saturday sports edition

A regional daily has marked 10 years since its Saturday sports edition last went to print.

The Birmingham Mail’s Sports Argus title was published for the final time on 13 May 2006, and football editor Mat Kendrick has looked back on its history in a piece for the newspaper.

The final edition of the Argus went to print on the same day as the FA Cup final between Liverpool and West Ham, but was not able to carry the result due to the match going into extra time.

Liverpool eventually won the Cup on a penalty shootout after the match ended 3-3.

The front cover of the last ever edition of the Sports Argus

The front cover of the last ever edition of the Sports Argus

Wrote Mat: “The very last edition of the exactly Argus 10 years ago showed why the format had, regrettably, had its day.”

“Shrewd sub-editors that day, with the match hanging in the balance, nailed it with the non-committal headline ‘Nailbiter!’.

“Of course, Argus readers would have known the outcome, because by the time of that ‘Last-ever Saturday night edition’ there were numerous ways to check on the afternoon’s action. And therein lay the Pink’s problem.

“From over a century of being the West Midlands’ sporting public’s must-have, go-to guide, it now found itself out of date by the time it hit the shelves.”

Added Mat: “There was a theory that supporters were more likely to buy it, had their team won.

“Given the slim pickings of football success in this region in recent years, the lack of victories would no doubt have hit the circulation anyway, had the internet age not got there.”

4 comments

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  • May 18, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    It’s just an easy column filler – never mind the quality it’s quantity that counts. Sad that they highlighted the inadequacies of print even 10 years ago. They should have been flexible enough to postpone print until after the result was known.

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  • May 18, 2016 at 11:48 am
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    footyfan demonstrates the ignorance of youth in his casual dismissal of the relevance of the Sports Argus piece. Those of us who worked on sports papers in their heyday, when queues formed in the streets waiting for the Pink or Green or Blue or whatever to arrive in the van, remember fondly the pressure and excitement of working flat out until the last chase was locked up and the forme was pushed off the stone. And I bet footyfan has no idea what that last bit means. The internet is a true marvel but let us not forget the jobs in newspapers that it has killed along the way. Those of us who were there in hot-metal times look back with pride and satisfaction. And that is the point Mat Kendrick was making.

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  • May 18, 2016 at 4:43 pm
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    Those were the days!! PinkUns and Green Und!!!! My very first piece in print — many many years ago — was in the Sports Argus.

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