The editor of a series of regional weekly titles is leaving his post to take up a job teaching sports journalism at the home of football.

Colin Channon, a group editor at Tindle Newspapers overseeing titles such as the Farnham Herald, is joining the team at the University Campus of Football Business (UCFB).

Based at Wembley Stadium in London, he is now looking forward to putting his years as a sports editor to good use in training up the next generation of reporters on the BA (hons) Multimedia Sports Journalism degree course.

The course’s programme leader, David King, worked with Colin at The News in Portsmouth, and moved to appoint his former colleague when another former News man, Mark Lawford, moved to a new role at UCFBs Manchester campus.

Experienced editor Colin Channon is leaving his role with Tindle Newspapers to take up a teaching job at the UCFB at Wembley Stadium.

Colin first visited the UCFB earlier this year when he was asked to give a talk, and he was so impressed with the quality of both the students and the course, that he was keen to accept the invitation when asked to return on a permanent basis.

He will start in his new role today.

Despite having spent his recent years as an editor, Colin admits that sports journalism continues to be his passion, and he cannot wait to share his experiences with the UCFB students.

“I was sports editor for a couple of decades (or more!) at The News and the Plymouth Herald before becoming an editor, and I still have a tendency to start reading a newspaper from the back, which probably means I have never managed to shake off the sports bug,” he said.

“I started working in newspapers when I was 18, straight from sixth form, stepping into the smoke-fugged and hectic newsroom at The News, which was selling more than 100,000 copies a night at the time.

“I remember when The News started a teletext service, very similar to the BBC’s Ceefax, and we thought we were hitting the heights of new technology!”

He added:  “I finish with the papers I edit at Tindle – the Herald series, based in Farnham, the Petersfield Post, and the News & Mail in Woking and Chobham – performing well above the industry average in terms of newspaper sales and digital performance,” he said.

“We may be a small team, but we punch well above our weight. For the whole Farnham Herald team, winning the Society of Editors’ Weekly Newspaper of the Year accolade in 2020 was a real highlight.

“The team deserved it for the huge amount of work they put in, and it will always remain one of the proudest moments of my career.”

“I’m very much looking forward to a new challenge and helping a new generation of sports-mad students make the most of their talents and the technology at their disposal as they look to embark on their own careers,” he said.