It's all gone quiet....

[mark]

Nothing in The Star since late July, is this an indication of how bad things have become in the local print media ?, it all feels like there's just 3 or 4 people left in the building scraping news headlines off various sources and repackaging them for local consumption with clickbait headlines. Even football coverage, once a staple of local media is less than it was, filler stories of "top ten left footed players" etc etc. I understand things change but where do we go to read well written and balanced articles about our clubs and the sport we follow or is that now a thing from the past ?, have they been replaced by the video interview as demonstrated by Peter Spencer today, which were excellent I thought, or will there be a new reporter writing the articles that we all crave to read. An improvement on the client journalism we've suffered from for too many years is well overdue and perhaps Mr Westerdale has reached the point where disappearing quietly into the distance would be in the best interests of everyone, including himself after the issues last season.

Or maybe it's just my own perspective in considering the written word as the highest form of the art of communication, I grew up in an age where reading was king and watching was just light entertainment and maybe that has changed in the modern world but I miss the well crafted, well researched and balanced written articles that informed AND entertained you.

As an example I'd like to respectfully suggest you try and get to read "A Game of Three Halves" by Liam Sluyter documenting the formation of the original Manchester Storm team, plenty in there about the Steelers as well and the writing style is brilliant bringing back many memories and may result in the occasional outbreak of hysterics as when he recalls seeing "Storm Latest" on the poster in the newsagent window, dashes in to buy a copy only to find that it was about some bad weather that had struck the Manchester area....

[ginger]

The Star (and most print media) has been on the decline for a number of years. The thing is you still can get excellent online articles written - The Players Tribune for example is a real favourite - articles by players (albeit I'm sure some journalistic support/ghost writer used).

But ultimately, yes, more and more media is video/audio based. There's a huge desire to hear discussion, which is why podcasts have become so popular.

Personally I think good content is good content no matter the media method used. The problem is that the lack of quality control causes you to have to seek out the good bits

[Doom]

Personally I think Bob Westerdale was a good friend of the Steelers over the years, but there were certainly some times he let himself down.

I started following the Steelers in The Star from their inception and I guess it was Bob doing the writing back then.

I remember as a kid waiting at the shops on a Saturday evening for the Green Un to arrive.

Fighting with my big brother at the bottom of the stairs to be first to get The Star as it popped through the letterbox.

Back in the day when I was chasing as much Ice Hockey news as possible it was Ice Hockey News Review, Powerplay Magazine, Stewart Roberts end of season annual and many a phone call to the Steelers hotline to satisfy my hockey thirst.

Then along came the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and Forums.....how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better.

I miss the old days, but I guess you have to move with the times.

Regards

Doom

[ginger]

Personally I think Bob Westerdale was a good friend of the Steelers over the years, but there were certainly some times he let himself down.

I started following the Steelers in The Star from their inception and I guess it was Bob doing the writing back then.

I remember as a kid waiting at the shops on a Saturday evening for the Green Un to arrive.

Fighting with my big brother at the bottom of the stairs to be first to get The Star as it popped through the letterbox.

Back in the day when I was chasing as much Ice Hockey news as possible it was Ice Hockey News Review, Powerplay Magazine, Stewart Roberts end of season annual and many a phone call to the Steelers hotline to satisfy my hockey thirst.

Then along came the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and Forums.....how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better.

I miss the old days, but I guess you have to move with the times.

Regards

Doom

The Green 'Un. Now there is a blast from the past!

[Jayboy]

Personally I think Bob Westerdale was a good friend of the Steelers over the years, but there were certainly some times he let himself down.

I started following the Steelers in The Star from their inception and I guess it was Bob doing the writing back then.

I remember as a kid waiting at the shops on a Saturday evening for the Green Un to arrive.

Fighting with my big brother at the bottom of the stairs to be first to get The Star as it popped through the letterbox.

Back in the day when I was chasing as much Ice Hockey news as possible it was Ice Hockey News Review, Powerplay Magazine, Stewart Roberts end of season annual and many a phone call to the Steelers hotline to satisfy my hockey thirst.

Then along came the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and Forums.....how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better.

I miss the old days, but I guess you have to move with the times.

Regards

Doom

The Green 'Un. Now there is a blast from the past!

and I covered an published every single green un article wrote by Dave Simms back in the day on SSHOF (Sheffield Steelers Hall of Fame) later the fanzine.. from Day one...? for those in the outlying areas who didn't get the green un..

news green un.png

[wakefieldsteelersfan]

Have I dreamt it or did the Steelers forum used to get printed out and stuck to a noticeboard on the concourse? Living out of the catchment area of the Star or the Green Un that was the only way I could catch up on the news

[Jayboy]

Have I dreamt it or did the Steelers forum used to get printed out and stuck to a noticeboard on the concourse? Living out of the catchment area of the Star or the Green Un that was the only way I could catch up on the news

No you've definitely not being dreaming several of us did that.. both forums...

[wakefieldsteelersfan]

Have I dreamt it or did the Steelers forum used to get printed out and stuck to a noticeboard on the concourse? Living out of the catchment area of the Star or the Green Un that was the only way I could catch up on the news

No you've definitely not being dreaming several of us did that.. both forums...

Thank god for that, I was telling my mate about it last season and he was certain I was talking out of my backside

[mark]

Have I dreamt it or did the Steelers forum used to get printed out and stuck to a noticeboard on the concourse? Living out of the catchment area of the Star or the Green Un that was the only way I could catch up on the news

Yes that did happen back then, another thing we did was a very early version of live scores where you signed up for a free email address from o2 and they sent a text to your phone anytime you received an email and the text included the subject line of the email. One mailing list later all it took for one of us to send an email to the list with the score update as the email subject and everyone got a quick update. To put that in context there wasn't much in the way of mobile internet back then, teletext ( ask your parents) was unreliable and the option of ringing a premium rate phone number to listen to Dave Simms give a recorded end of period update was as unappetising then as it would be now. It did mean we only needed one person at an away game to provide coverage and it worked quite well, at a home game I could send the score and listen to hundreds of phones beeping around the Arena.

[greeny]

star has updated its ice hockey page but still nothing about steelers,,,