A former sports editor who launched his own golf news website after losing his job has urged other journalists to follow in his footsteps.

Mark Flanagan, who used to run the Hull Daily Mail’s sportsdesk, has called on journalists with “good ideas” to launch their own titles two years after he launched GolfNews24.

Mark, pictured, launched the site after losing his job as editor for Built Environment Networking and has now gone full-time running the title.

GolfNews24 reports on major amateur golf events and club news and runs the biggest scratch golf event in the country while, later this year, Mark plans to launch a new competition for the 5,000-plus club champions in England, Scotland and Wales.

He said: “In hindsight losing my job at BEN was the best thing that could have happened to me.

“Thankfully I had been planning GolfNews24 when I got the job with BEN in the January of 2021 so, when I was unexpectly let go less than three months later, I just got on with launching GolfNews24.

“And it has gone better than I ever could have expected. From a standing start, and with virtually no budget, we are well on course to get 300,000 page views this year.

“I knew that amateur golf received poor coverage and at its heart, the site simply addresses the need to recognise achievement. So many amazing stories were being missed but not any longer.”

Mark, also a former Yorkshire Post sub-editor, ran the site part-time alongside doing other freelance work for the likes of Today’s Golfer and Golf Today but has now gone full-time.

He has now encouraged fellow journalists with “good ideas” to “take the plunge as long as they are not relying on online advertising for the bulk of revenues, short term or long term”.

Mark added: “We are still very small but even when we get to 1,000,000-plus views per year, the kind of ad revenue that wll help generate will be small compared to what we get from other revenue streams.

“One of the big income drivers will come from launching a series of amateur golf competitions over the next five years and the sponsorship derived from that.

“Our first major national event will be launched later this year, complete with a five-figure sponsorship deal.”