As we step into 2025, AW is celebrating an enormous milestone – 80 years since it began. Again in 1945, Jimmy Inexperienced had an concept to launch {a magazine} devoted to athletics and it has since grown into the enduring publication we all know in the present day.
All of it started with Inexperienced, a former RAF man, who acquired the ball rolling from the bed room of his bungalow in Kent. When he first launched the journal in December 1945, it was known as Athletics, a pocket-sized, 24-page publication.
The quilt featured lengthy jumper Jim Morrish and even though post-war rationing meant no new publications could possibly be launched, Inexperienced discovered a means across the rule and informed a small white lie. He known as the primary difficulty “Vol II No.1” with the intention to get the undertaking off the bottom.
Because the now late former AW editor Mel Watman wrote, “As his struggle service within the RAF neared its finish and ‘Civvy Road’ beckoned, the 36-year-old Jimmy Inexperienced puzzled about the opportunity of creating an athletics journal. He sought recommendation and was informed unequivocally that such a enterprise would by no means pay for itself and he ought to overlook it.”
However Inexperienced ignored the recommendation and went forward anyway, decided to carry one thing new to the world of athletics.
The journal’s mission assertion was to “carry all lovers within the athletics world particulars of current outcomes, the most recent info concerning coming occasions, membership notes and information, outcomes and information from the Colonies and different nations abroad, and articles of curiosity to the athlete usually”.
By the tip of 1949, AW had bought round 5000 points and demand was rising. To satisfy that demand, Inexperienced made the leap from month-to-month to weekly, with Athletics Weekly making its debut on January 7, 1950, priced at sixpence for 16 pages.
As Watman remembers: “To mark the event Jimmy doubled the dimensions of the employees by taking over a typist to assist him out.”
Quick ahead one other 75 years and AW has advanced much more. Within the autumn of 2020, it shifted again to a month-to-month format, whereas nonetheless delivering the identical mixture of occasion protection, interviews, coaching recommendation, outcomes and stats that readers have come to anticipate.
As we have fun 80 years of AW in 2025, it’s unimaginable to suppose how far the journal has come from these humble beginnings in Jimmy Inexperienced’s Kent bungalow.
To have fun our 80-year anniversary this yr, you’ll find our first ever difficulty of AW through the Athletics Weekly archive, and look via all of our copies over time.
From the primary ever difficulty in December 1945 via to the current day, present subscribers to our journal are capable of dip into this useful resource totally free whereas non-subscribers pays simply £3.99 per 30 days for full entry.
» Subscribe to AW journal right here, take a look at our new podcast right here or signal as much as our digital archive of again points from 1945 to the current day right here
