A student has won a place on a magazine journalism course thanks to a bursary from the Sports Journalists’ Association.

Sean Lightbown has won the SJA’s summer bursary, worth almost £2,000, which will pay for half of the course run by PMA Media Training in London.

He has just finished a degree in politics with economics at Bath University and hopes the course will help him become a sports journalist.

Sean, who comes from Bolton, has been sports editor for two years on the university’s newspaper, managing a team of writers.

He said: “This is terrific news. I applied for the bursary, but didn’t really think I’d win it.

“Proof-reading and sub-editing into the small hours on the university newspaper have given me an introduction to the kind of hours I can expect.”

SJA committee member Keith Elliott said: “We were very impressed by Sean’s maturity and by what he had done with the university’s sports pages. He’s got the right attitude and I reckon he’ll do very well.”

During the nine-week couse, Sean will learn all the core skills needed by journalists, including news-writing, feature-writing, sub-editing, law, shorthand and shooting and editing videos.

The SJA makes the bursary award twice a year.