Athletics Weekly

Athletics Weekly is an athletics magazine published in the United Kingdom by Descartes Publishing.

"Athletics Weekly" covers all aspects of athletics, including track and field, cross-country, road racing and race walking.

Early years

The magazine was started as a monthly by PW "Jimmy" Green in 1945, with the first few issues produced from the back bedroom of a bungalow in Kent which Green shared with his wife, Pam.

With post-war paper rationing still in force, Green used a mixture of determination and devilment to launch the first, self-published edition. It was numbered Volume II Issue I, but this was a deliberate error to fool the government into thinking the magazine had existed before the war. There was, of course, never a Volume I.

Green was also told by athletics and publishing experts that the idea would never work. “I thanked them for their advice and completely ignored it. I was pig headed,” said Green. Green's magazine went weekly in 1950, published on Fridays, and has never failed to come out since.

In 1968, Green (who died in 1998, aged 88) passed the editorship to the enthusiastic and knowledgeable Mel Watman, who in a near-20-year reign steered the title to some success and continued to build its reputation for accuracy and authority.

Independently published by Kent Art Printers in a distinctive A5, pocket-sized format, the magazine reached its peak of popularity in the mid-1980s - coinciding with the marathon running boom following the first London Marathon in 1981 - selling some 28,000 copies per week.

Emap years

The title was bought in 1987 by Emap and moved from Kent to Peterborough, where the management sought to repeat the publishing success of its "Smash Hits" pop title and re-launched AW as an A4 title aimed at teenagers.

Emap made some business decisions that decreased the quality of the product and damaged the magazine's reputation. First, the previous editorial staff was not retained by Emap thus losing the experience and inside connections these employees had fostered through the years. On top of this the inexperienced editorial team had to deal with a publication date brought forward to Wednesdays, requiring a speedy and expensive turnaround of each weekend's results. The result of these decisions was that lucrative subscriptions were lost and "Athletics Weekly" sales nosedived. By late 1989, one-third of sales had been lost and Keith Nelson, Emap's choice as editor, was moved on.

Aware of its loyal following's disgruntlement with the re-launch of "Athletics Weekly", Eddie Kulukundis funded the launch of rival title, "Athletics Today", edited by Randall Northam: for the first time in its existence, "Athletics Weekly" now faced competition.

Despite the sport's continued successes through the 1990s and the ultimate demise of its rival, "Athletics Weekly" struggled in vain to regain its reputation for comprehensiveness and accuracy.

Descartes years

After a decade's ownership, Emap admitted defeat and in 1999 licensed the title to Descartes Publishing, a company established by businessman and athletics enthusiast Matthew Fraser Moat for the purpose. Descartes kept the title in Peterborough and went on to purchase the title outright in 2003; in December 2005 the magazine celebrated its 60th birthday with a special 100 page edition.

In 2006 the title changed its publication date back to a Thursday, and increased in size to 64 pages a week; in 2007 an online digital version was launched.

As at September 2008, there are 6 editorial staff who work on the publication of "Athletics Weekly":
*Jason Henderson - Editor
*Paul Halford - Deputy Editor
*Mike Taylor - Production Editor
*Steve Smythe - Results Editor
*Jacky Brett - Results Compiler
*Jolyon Attwooll - News Reporter

Athletics Weekly editors

*PW "Jimmy" Green - 1945-1968
*Mel Watman - 1968-1986
*Barry Trowbridge - 1986-1987
*Keith Nelson - 1987-1989
*Steven Downes - 1989-1991
*Paul Richardson - 1991-1992
*David Clarke - 1993-1994
*Paul Larkins - 1994-1995
*Nigel Walsh - 1995-2001
*Jason Henderson - 2001 to date

External links

* [http://www.athletics-weekly.com/ Athletics Weekly website]
* [http://www.athleticsdata.com Athletics Data website]
* [http://www.exacteditions.com/athleticsweekly AW digital]