Football Focus Issue 81 | Page 49

Gainsborough Trinity Gainsborough Trinity FOOTBALL CLUB This is my fourth season involved with Gainsborough Trinity having initially become involved with the matchday programme, and quickly assuming a number of other key roles in the development of the communication output of the football club. What started out as an offer to write a couple of articles for programmes up and down the country, turned into pulling together all aspects of the programme, whilst at the same time taking photographs on a matchday, having found out the club didn’t, at the time, have a photographer. This was the first of many things that I hadn’t done before, but turned my hand to, as I felt it would help to raise the profile of the football club. Since then, I have established the club’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts, growing our online presence and increasing the name Gainsborough Trinity! If that wasn’t enough, this pre-season saw the birth of Gainsborough Trinity Radio, offering full match commentary to those not able to make it to whichever destination, up and down the country the Holy Blues are heading! Again, something I never could have imagined doing five years ago! So all in all, Gainsborough Trinity, a friendly club with something of a blank canvas – a supportive chairman – and the sky the limit, I set about an all-consuming project, to help put Gainsborough Trinity on the map! I have a beautiful wife and daughter, who have had to be so understanding. Juggling my time is incredibly difficult. As well as my family, I have a full-time job and put in countless hours, writing articles, proof-reading and phoning round and emailing contributors – and that’s just on the programme side of things. When you start to factor in the hours that can be spent editing and polishing match highlights for the YouTube channel, including the graphics associated to them, it all mounts up! Fortunately, with a fairly settled squad this time around, the number of texts requesting hurried press releases has been something of a plus! With two games a week the norm, particularly this season (it seems a hell of a lot more intensive this time round) I really seem to be chasing my tail. Fitting this all around a full-time job, where I am working long hours in a factory – I gave up teaching – so I could have the football side of things in www.footballfocusmag.com 49