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JUNE - JULY 2011: THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE

-Recipient of the Racing Book of the Year Award 2011

THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE

The history of the Sporting Life newspaper (1859-1998)

Launched on 24th March 1859, the Sporting Life was the most famous of all sporting newspapers, through the campaigns it waged, the events it covered and the journalists who wrote for it. Prominence was given to horse racing which formed the core of its contents, but numerous other sports and pastimes were chronicled within its pages over the 139 years of its existence. Its readership encompassed all sections of society including the great wordsmith of his time, Charles Dickens who described himself as a “humble disciple of an able teacher which is served up to me every Wednesday and Saturday at the moderate price of a penny”. The appeal of the paper was as strong a century later, when Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother admitted to, “Of course I read the Sporting Life”. It was during the imperial reign of Queen Victoria

that England exported sport to the world and the Life was there to record history in the making. The men who gave the Life its literary clout during its early days were celebrated exponents of their art. Those men, together with many other gifted reporters and columnists, helped to make the Life world renowned, yet in the entire history of Fleet Street it is doubtful if any newspaper had such a disastrous start or suffered a more ignoble end---stabbed in the back by its own proprietor. Its initial misfortunes were self-inflicted and humiliating. Not only did it miss the deadline for its first number, to appear a day late, but it was just a few weeks old when it lost a costly court case and was forced to change its title, for lasting benefit. During the initial years two of its publishers were sacked for misconduct, its manager did a runner to escape his creditors and its

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proprietor and editor were made bankrupt. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the paper almost went under, but they managed to survive. It endured the rabid-attacks of the Anti Gambling League and struggled on when parliamentary legislation cut of the valuable revenue it received from its principle advertisers-bookmakers and tipsters. It was the voice of racing through two World Wars; it weathered the general strike of 1926, the national newspaper strike of 1955, and a welter of internal disputes and industrial sabotage instituted by the print unions in the 1970’s and ‘80s. It even survived the ravages of its one-time proprietor Robert Maxwell, who issued dismissal notices to the entire staff as he plundered their pension fund, but it finally succumbed to the incompetence of its management and the cut-throat policies of the commercial world. On Tuesday, 12th May 1998, after 139 years and 36,910 numbers, the Sporting Life rolled off the presses for the

last time and part of Britain’s sporting heritage died with it. The Penny Bell’s Life was born at a time when the English nation had become obsessed with sport in all its forms. At a time when national pride stemmed from the country’s faith in the invincibility of its sportsmen. It was an exciting time for journalism. Up to the 1840’s news of events had been relayed to the printing houses of London by mail coach, carrier pigeons or mounted courier. On Derby Day Londoners used to crowd Waterloo Bridge and the Strand to see the courier of the Bell’s Life ride home carrying the names of the winners in a sealed pouch slung around his neck. The winged messengers would cover 55 miles from Goodwood to London in 75 minutes provided they weren’t “picked off on race days by gunners, who were anxious to read the little billet on their leg...We have heard of them coming from Epsom with an entry list printed on tissue paper tied to each leg, so as to balance them”. Advances in the printing industry brought about radical changes in Fleet Street. At the beginning of the century, newspapers were produced on hand operated wooden presses but with the introduction of new technology such as the rotary press, stereotype plates, mechanical typecasting and typesetting and automatic ink-feeds the printing industry progressed rapidly. A wider and faster distribution system provided by the railways helped the newspapers enter the age of mass circulation. Then came the ‘tax on knowledge’ which over a period of time was proposed and opposed till finally it was abolished leading to a veritable explosion of the newspaper industry. It’s safe to assume the Sporting Life was not as popular in the royal household in 1859 as it was to

become later. But it is quite possible that Albert Edward the Prince of Wales, then a fun loving 17-year-old yet to be initiated into the delights of the Turf, would read the paper in the not too distant future. Rebuked for his involvement in what his mother saw as a thoroughly disreputable sport, he wrote, “I utterly and entirely disapprove of what is bad about racing and I think much may be done in trying to elevate what has always been a great national sport of our country. Should we shun races entirely...the racing would get worse and worse and these pleasant and social gatherings would cease to exist.” The fascinating story of this incredible newspaper that survived the storms that came its way over its 139 year history is chronicled in a book by James Lambie, who has reported on racing from all over the world and became the Life’s chief northern correspondent in 1982, a position he held till the paper folded in 1998.

To Order Log on to: http://www.sportinglifebook.com/

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