Chairman’s message
Dear Member,
I’d like to wish you a very happy 2018, and to pass on a few personal – and private - thoughts from the Football Writers’ Association chair.
We promised to increase the FWA’s size and diversity and, while the latter was always going to be the greater challenge, the growing influence of women is reflected in Vikki Orvice’s election as vice-chair and the lively committee presence of Carrie Brown. I would still like to improve the racial balance of the committee and hope that before the AGM in May we will do that.
Numerically we are up 50 per cent over three years but, having sailed past the 300 mark, are now set on 400. In addition the new category of student member has seen around 40 of the next generation of football writers sign up. One of their number, Luke Coulson, has already qualified as a journalist, but let’s hope his career stays on hold for many years, as he is currently starring for Ebbsfleet United in the Vanarama National League.
Luke, along with Glenn Moore, contributes a column to our website, which Gerry Cox and his team have revamped. All shares, likes and retweets are appreciated. Your committee are grateful to Gerry, and to John Ley for dealing with the extremely welcome influx of new members. But you can help to make John even busier by encouraging non-members to join; all they need to do is go to the MEMBERSHIP section of the website. The more there are of us, the more we can do for all football writers.
Speaking of which, what do we achieve? More than put on our two gala dinners – even though the work Paul McCarthy has put into this month’s Tribute Night in honour of Pele has been phenomenal. Probably our most important function is the largely unseen negotiation with the football authorities and clubs over facilities and access to players. Too often it is an uphill task – but it must be done.
We also, with the extremely generous assistance of our main sponsors William Hill, held a sell-out event after the Grenfell Tower fire which raised £10,000 for the victims of the disaster and I'd like to thank everybody who helped make that event such a success.
Finally to one of our most enjoyable duties; may I remind all members to make their recommendations for Football Book of The Year? Our selection committee is chaired by Mike Collett and he wants to hear from you at mikecol99@gmail.com.
All the best,
We promised to increase the FWA’s size and diversity and, while the latter was always going to be the greater challenge, the growing influence of women is reflected in Vikki Orvice’s election as vice-chair and the lively committee presence of Carrie Brown. I would still like to improve the racial balance of the committee and hope that before the AGM in May we will do that.
Numerically we are up 50 per cent over three years but, having sailed past the 300 mark, are now set on 400. In addition the new category of student member has seen around 40 of the next generation of football writers sign up. One of their number, Luke Coulson, has already qualified as a journalist, but let’s hope his career stays on hold for many years, as he is currently starring for Ebbsfleet United in the Vanarama National League.
Luke, along with Glenn Moore, contributes a column to our website, which Gerry Cox and his team have revamped. All shares, likes and retweets are appreciated. Your committee are grateful to Gerry, and to John Ley for dealing with the extremely welcome influx of new members. But you can help to make John even busier by encouraging non-members to join; all they need to do is go to the MEMBERSHIP section of the website. The more there are of us, the more we can do for all football writers.
Speaking of which, what do we achieve? More than put on our two gala dinners – even though the work Paul McCarthy has put into this month’s Tribute Night in honour of Pele has been phenomenal. Probably our most important function is the largely unseen negotiation with the football authorities and clubs over facilities and access to players. Too often it is an uphill task – but it must be done.
We also, with the extremely generous assistance of our main sponsors William Hill, held a sell-out event after the Grenfell Tower fire which raised £10,000 for the victims of the disaster and I'd like to thank everybody who helped make that event such a success.
Finally to one of our most enjoyable duties; may I remind all members to make their recommendations for Football Book of The Year? Our selection committee is chaired by Mike Collett and he wants to hear from you at mikecol99@gmail.com.
All the best,
Patrick Barclay
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