Passing Shots - back with a vengeance!

JUST like any diet, the golden rule about writing blogs is that you've got to make it sustainable! 
Have something to say should be the cardinal rule, which is why Passing Shots has been putting its feet up for the past 10 months.
However, much has happened since my last blog.
I've moved - yet again! - for about the 12th time in 10 years and I've just started a dream job heading up the journalism programme at Highbury College in Portsmouth.
However, I am still working for the charity Hearing Link, focusing on the hearing loop programme which has become a labour of love over the past 12 months.
I am also freelancing as a copywriter for a friend who is setting up a public relations company in Wiltshire.
Add to that mix an infernal passion for running, plus a family life which makes John Boy and The Waltons seems decidedly dull, and there's definitely plenty of content to be working with. So here goes.....

West Ham's Jimmy Greaves being tackled by
Manchester City's Mike Doyle at a
muddy Maine Road in 1970

HAVE you noticed as you get older, you tend to wallow in any dollop of nostalgia which is served up?
"Match of the Day at 50" was a golden opportunity to revel in a time when football, especially the offside rule, was simple. As the great Spurs manager, Bill Nicholson, once said: "If he's not interfering with play, what's he doing on the pitch?"!
This sublime blast of soccer sentimentality reminded you how, for many years, only the FA Cup Final was broadcast live on TV. A glorious day when you had chose between the BBC or ITV coverage from the early morning build-up. It made live football special, and an occasion to be cherished.
Muddy pitches, Saturday football with three 'o clock kick-offs, blistering tackles without any quarter given and no bookings dished out, footballers with names you could pronounce and from countries you'd heard of, plus a weekly audience with some greatest commentators; Barry Davies, John Motson, David Coleman and Kenneth Wolstenholme (not forgetting the king of commentators, ITV's Brian Moore).
There was plenty of images of Jimmy Hill on the Match of the Day documentary. It's sad to reflect that Jimmy, who did so much to change the face of modern football, is now 86 and resting in a care home suffering from dementia.


SEPTEMBER 1st heralds the start of a new term at Highbury College in Portsmouth, and, from a personal perspective, a fresh beginning as I head up the NCTJ journalism programme.
I can't wait. I've met many of the students who will be embarking on the 20-week Fast Track course, as well as the One Year programme which is based at the Portsmouth News.
While you might suspect that as the media industry has contracted in recent years with fewer jobs being offered, the demand for journalism training remains as strong as ever.
We've got 26 students signed up for both courses, and a healthy set of enquiries for the next Fast Track course in February. We've got teenagers fresh from finishing their A Levels, graduates looking to add a journalism qualification to their degree, and we've got a couple of students who have decided on a career change.
All have one vision in mind - they want a career in journalism; newspapers, magazines, digital, public relations, television and radio.
It promises to be an interesting and exciting course. Despite more than 30 years' experience as a journalist, I've got a lot to learn as a teacher, but I have aspirations of establishing Highbury as the number one journalism training college in the UK.


TALK about being last with the news, but I only learned this morning of the passing of former colleague, Les Horton - who died three years ago! 

Les Horton

Colin Young, who was also a colleague of mine at the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain back in the late 1980s, sent me a Tweet to ask if I had heard.
Les, who was news editor when Colin and I worked there, died of cancer after a 14-month battle. He was just 56.
I often think about my newsroom dream team, and Les would definitely be there - as would Colin, a wily Geordie who is a fantastic business reporter..
When I arrived in Bahrain in 1988, Les took me under his wing initially. I stayed at his flat in Manama, got introduced to the joys of The Londoner pub, and he would let me borrow his his flashy orange Jeep on jobs from the GDN's offices in Isa Town. Open top in the blistering sunshine - bliss!
Being a journalist in Bahrain is not easy, with the spectre of censorship constantly hanging over you, and access to official information never straightforward.
Sometimes it could take you several days to nail the simplest of stories, and Les taught me the value of tenacity in chasing a story and also how to get out of an editorial hole.
I call it cul-de-sac journalism; when you believe that every source has been exhausted, but you then step up a gear to think laterally and discover another way to hook the story. Sometimes it takes a side-step to move upwards.
Les was one of the best with a brilliant nose for news and a superb strategist.

Keith Newbery

This summer, we also lost another fine journalist who would be in my newsroom dream team.
Keith Newbery was an old school journalist and one of the finest writers I've ever had the opportunity to work with. He commanded respect in a newsroom, built upon years of wisdom.
Keith's writing was as sharp as butcher's knife, and his comment columns took a tack which few journalists ever ventured down. I was in awe of the man when I worked at the Portsmouth News, but who was very gracious in giving you the time to talk about the job.
Finally, not a death, but a departure.
I couldn't help but notice the news earlier this month that Shamus Donald has stepped down as managing director of Newsquest in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Shamus was at the helm when I was editor of the Swindon Advertiser. He ran a tight ship when the industry went through the stormiest of waters after 2008 which required a total restructuring of the operation. As a result, the two divisions remained the most profitable in the Newsquest empire while really pushing ahead with a digital vision which left other publishers trailing in their wake.
It's fair to say that Shamus and I didn't always see eye-to-eye. I don't play the politics, I just get on with the job. But, I'd like to think I played my part in Swindon, generating some of the highest newspaper circulations and digital performance in Newsquest at the time, as well as establishing the Adver's reputation as a newspaper which really connected at the heart of the community.
While I am certainly not on Shamus's Christmas card list, I retain enormous respect for the Scot for what he achieved during some of the toughest economic conditions the regional press has ever faced. I wish him well.


And finally, running. I had my first run this morning in more than three weeks. 
It was just great to get out first thing on a Sunday.
It's funny how the simplest of injuries can cause the longest of lay-offs. I ran a gentle early morning four-miler around Lydiard Park in Swindon earlier this month and felt a slight hamstring twinge. I ran a few days later, when I shouldn't have, and I could barely walk afterwards.
It has been tough, really tough not to run. I read with envy all of my friends' race updates on Facebook. Driving on roads through the New Forest, you see runners and cyclists enjoying the beautiful countryside and I wish I was with them.
As you get older, injuries take longer to recover. This was nothing more I could do for a nasty hamstring pull than to ice it and rest.
This morning's four-miler wasn't totally pain-free, but it was a start. I think an appointment with the physio is in order this week, with some big half marathons coming up this autumn.