An enterprising sports journalist has taken on a freelance reporter and hired a sub-editor as he sets his sights on growing his new media venture.

Football reporter Steven Chicken, pictured, launched paid-for Substack-based platform We Are Terriers after his post was made redundant by Reach in a wave of cutbacks last November.

Steven, who covered the fortunes of EFL side Huddersfield Town for Reach’s Huddersfield Examiner and Yorkshire Live, says his first year of business has “far exceeded” expectations.

While he is keeping exact numbers close to his chest, Steven has confirmed that he has created an opportunity for a student journalist to make his mark in sport and employed a sub-editor to accelerate the new enterprise’s growth trajectory.

“In all honesty we’ve far exceeded what we thought would be a good first year but wherever possible we’ve tried to reinvest back into the coverage,” Steven told HTFP.

“This season I’ve hired a very talented young journalism student, Arthur Difford, as a freelance to provide full coverage of Huddersfield Town Women, and we’ve also sponsored the training kit for one of their youth teams.

“I’m not expecting much of a return on investment, but having worked in women’s football, I was keen to do my very small part to do that once I was in a position to do so.

“We also have a freelance sub-editor working on a piece rate checking the majority of our written content. So the cost base has gradually grown, but in a very managed way that I’m happy with.”

Steven is being rewarded for boldly moving to fill a gap in the market at a time national and regional newspapers are scaling back non-Premier League coverage.

“We Are Terriers has just landed in a nice little niche,” Steven said.

“If Huddersfield were a bigger club they’d probably be better covered elsewhere, and if they were a smaller club there wouldn’t really be the market for it.

“You need a bit of a gap in the market and a bit of an existing audience for it to work. But increasingly people are willing to pay a small subscription fee for good content.

Steven says backing from officials at Huddersfield Town has been key to his success.

“Town themselves were also very supportive of the project because they recognised that losing a dedicated local journalist wasn’t really in their interests, either,” Steven added.

“I’ve been very critical of them on the pitch a lot of the time over the past few years, and rightly so, but there’s also times when misinformation can spread, and that’s when you’re glad you have a journalist you can go to.

“I’ve been fortunate to cover a club that have recognised that and continued to give me the same access I had before.

“I don’t want it to go unsaid that the Yorkshire Post and Radio Leeds both do excellent jobs in this space too, but Huddersfield are just one of several clubs for both of them.

“I like to think we’re able to go into a bit more depth, which is the great benefit of local journalism.”

And the Yorkshire-based journalist – who is behind the ‘We Are Terriers’ platform – is now urging journalists “with specialist knowledge” to follow suit and pursue their own media dreams.

“It just goes to show there is still an appetite for in-depth local journalism,” Steven continued.

“It also demonstrates that Substack, Patreon and similar platforms are a viable way to go if the circumstances are right.

“And I would definitely consider it as an option if you have specialist knowledge that people care about.”

Steven spent four and a half years covering Huddersfield in his first full-time football job and also began co-hosting the ‘Ooh To Be A…’ podcast with Opta’s David Hartrick.

“Our biggest asset going into the launch of ‘We Are Terriers’ was the fact we had a very loyal audience,” Steven said.

“That was built up via the podcast I co-host with David – getting him on board five years ago was the best decision I ever made.

“My own podcast feed is full of shows I’ve been listening to for years, several of which I’ve supported on something like a £5-per-month subscription, so we were hoping there was a market for something similar.

“The other thing people really liked was the complete absence of adverts on Substack. It’s very clean and readable, and if you like you can just read it in your email inbox.

“The only things we’ve advertised is our own merchandise and club charity events and that’s generally just been a picture and a link at the bottom of an article, rather than interrupting the copy or as a distracting pop-up.”

He continued: “Not all of our subscribers are paid subscribers – it’s roughly half and half.

“And we do offer some content free of charge, namely the player ratings for each game (which is a bit of a shop window for us) and a weekly digest rounding up all the injury news, key quotes and so on.

“I don’t charge for that because I have an ethos that I don’t want to charge people for things they can get free of charge elsewhere. I don’t think it would work otherwise.

“There’s a natural ceiling on the number of people who will ever be willing to pay £5 a month, but so far we’ve found subscriber numbers will stay roughly flat for long periods.

“Then something very newsworthy will happen (a change of manager, relegation, the start of the new season) and we’ll get a bit of a bump up to the next plateau, then sit there for a for weeks, then another little spike, and so on.”

Steven’s background in accountancy has stood him in good stead for the business venture.

“There’s been quite a bit of admin for me, especially during the launch phase,” Steven said.

“But thankfully I’ve got a bit of accountancy experience in my back pocket and love building spreadsheets, so it’s not felt like a chore.”