IMS_Blog

Interesting piece in the Guardian newspaper talking about the demise of Saturday evening local papers carrying reports of the local football results. Traditionally these would be printed on unusually coloured paper (anyone know why?), quite often pink. Whilst the version of my youth, the Pink covering Newcastle United, is still around, many others aren’t.
I remember being young and just after tea on a Saturday my dad would go along the shop for the Pink, and normally chocolate (it was always simply the Pink to us, never the Pink ‘Un. My fiancee Rachel knew hers as that, and gets nostalgic over it every time we’re in Norwich on a Saturday). He’d read it and then I would, devouring the tales of goals and chances. Occasionally we’d know we had the very early edition because the score would be wrong due to some 89th minute goal, or they would just mention that goal right at the end with no description. I suppose in this internet age the information is immediately available, even as it happens, but somehow that can’t be the same (strangely whilst the other local Newcastle papers are online the Pink isn’t). What about those tiny local sides always covered a few pages in? The centre page picture of some hero of a player to pull out and reverently attach to a bedroom wall? No, I like the thought that if I happen to visit home on a Saturday I can buy the Pink, despite knowing the score and many of the talking points. Long live the Pink (and Pink ‘Un and Green ‘Un and…)