WE’VE BEEN DELIGHTED, over the past few days, to welcome hundreds of new members to The42.
These new supporters have put their money where their sports coverage is and will get access to even more podcasts, newsletters, discounts, events (in the near future again, I hope), as well as plenty more.
This new impetus is, of course, even more welcome in the wake of last week’s news about our parent company.
Journal Media have been forced to implement cuts and other measures in an effort to secure our future in the present context of collapsing advertising revenue streams.
Thank you to our loyal members and new supporters. We’re glad to have you all aboard; it’s more important to us than ever and we realise there’s a lot going on in everyone’s lives at the moment.
So what will you get this week for your money?
Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey will slip an old VHS tape marked ‘Munster v Gloucester 2003: The Miracle Match’ into the video machine and hope no one taped over it ahead of a ‘classic game’ conversation on Rugby Weekly Extra. Our very knowledgeable rugby members WhatApp will give their take too, of course.
Tomorrow, journalist, broadcaster and All-Ireland winning Kerry footballer Dara Ó Cinnéide is Gavin Cooney’s guest on Behind the Lines, the podcast in which we discuss sportswriter’s careers and books or articles that helped shape them.
There’s now a deep archive of discussions with the likes of Malachy Clerkin, Jeff Pearlman, Dave Hannigan, Joanne O’Riordan and Bryan Curtis to enjoy.
On Wednesday, we launch a new series with Observer writer and author Seamas O’Reilly (@shockproofbeats) called… Really Into Years. Seamas and Gavin will explore the sporting events and cultural minutiae of a particular year in each episode, starting this week with 2006. [Lawyer's note: Any similarity to any other media company's output is entirely incidental].
You want more?
On Thursday, we’ll reveal to the world a new GAA podcast series called Warriors in which we revist some of our games’ most-loved teams, personalities and moments in various ways.
In episode one, producer Kevin Brannigan heads for the sunny south-east to spend a couple of days talking to the men who won the All-Ireland hurling championship in 1996. Warriors: Wexford ’96 featuring the likes of Liam Griffin and Martin Storey is inspirational and very enjoyable stuff.
Next week, we’ll release a beautiful essay from Donal Ryan — the muti-Booker Prize nominee — about being ‘no use’ at sport, which he wrote especially for our members.
It’ll be the first in the Byline Project, in which we invite novelists we admire to write about sport.
We’ll have various newsletters too throughout the week, depending on how much you want to hear from us.
As Roberto Duran said: no mas, no mas.
Thanks again for your support and if you’re thinking about getting involved in this growing community, there are more details here.
