100 Posts - Thank You!

Well we've made it. Triple figures. One hundred posts. And first thing is first, I want to thank you guys. Without you guys I would have no audience and no feedback so for that I am eternally grateful. Since I started last March I didn't anticipate how supportive everyone would be and I hope you will all continue to support me as I pursue this career in sports journalism.

When I cast my eyes back to the year just gone its quite surprising how much I have developed and learnt since starting my writing. What initially started out as a single match report on an international friendly between Brazil and Russia has developed into a full-blooded sports blog covering a huge variety of sports from Tennis and Golf to Darts and Curling. This in turn extended out of just writing as I now work with an excellent and dedicated team on the University Radio Nottingham Sports Show and am part of the growing Nottingham Forest and Notts County Podcast, as well as working, albeit irregularly, on my YouTube channel.

The big question I have to ask myself now is where do I see the blog going in the future? Well one thing that is for certain is that I will be doing everything in my power to maintain a regular stream of new material in order to try and entertain you guys and myself. I currently have two main projects, one being the 'Sports Ladder' which has been a major part of the blog for a number of months now. The other is my new 'Tennis Brit Watch' project which began almost alongside my one hundredth post.

The Sports Ladder for me is definitely one of the most enjoyable projects i've ever embarked on. By keeping a close eye on sports stories every day, it has enabled me to stumble across some of the strangest and wackiest stories in the world of sport. Only this week for example the story of Pablo Larrazabal and his golf course hornet incident proves the ridiculous and unpredictable nature of the sporting world. But for me one of the highlights is unearthing sportsman that perhaps wouldn't usually get the recognition they deserve. The likes of Ben Maher, Tai Woofinden, Rowan Cheshire and Yulia Lipnitskaya are all names that, had I not done this feature, I would probably never have heard of, so its great that this can promote the achievements of these individuals and others.

But what of the new feature, the 'Tennis Brit Watch'? For me tennis is a sport closer to my heart than most others as it is the one I grew up playing and watching. Whilst for a few years I lost touch with the tennis world the blog and the opportunities that come alongside it have completely rekindled my love for the sport. It was mainly my work this year for SEaT Capital that re-lit this fire but also a growing discontent with the media attention shown to British tennis players. Everyone knows Andy Murray but many people would fail to recognise a single other British male, despite the fact that British doubles players occupy 10% of the top forty players in the World.  My aim, alongside a few select others is to try and boost the recognition for these lesser known athletes amongst both fans of sport and the public in general. The feature is only in it's first week but seems to have been supported well so far and I shall look to develop this over the coming months.

Of course, outside of these two regular features there will still be other blogs for those of you more interested in other sports. Football is of course a major talking point an with the World Cup soon upon us I'm sure that will take centre-stage for a few months throughout the summer. Alongside this I intent to begin increasing my output of opinion pieces. These require more development and research than many of my current reporting pieces which are why they are more rare but hopefully as I continue to develop their numbers will increase.

The other question that many of you have asked me in recent weeks has been the disappearance of my YouTube channel and why this has happened. The simple reason for this is that I was struggling to fit filming and editing it alongside my writing, my radio work and my degree. I was also not completely happy with the content I was creating and felt that I could do better so have decided to step away from it for the foreseeable future to decide how best to take it forward. I have a number ideas so it is by no means dead and buried but do not expect anything to emerge any time soon.

So that just about wraps up my centenary update. I hope you guys have learnt how much I enjoy working on these pieces and projects and I hope you enjoy them just as much. More than anything else though I want to thank all of my readers for your fantastic and consistent support and I will continue to listen to and act upon any criticism or feedback you have on my work. Until the two hundredth post, I return to my sporting ways and leave the diary-style blogs to those who don't use as many 'I's' as I have in this blog.

Thanks y'all!