Results tagged “leaving” from Birmingham Mail - Wolverhampton Wanderers Blog

..and so I face, the final curtain.
Today, after seven years, is to be my last day on the Birmingham Mail.
Time for pastures new, and a fresh role as a press officer with Wolves.
Poacher turned gamekeeper, as many have pointed out.
I've never quite cottoned onto the idea of reporters waxing lyrical about their departures.
After all, the news is always the most important thing irrespective of who it is providing it.
But bearing in mind the fact that this website carries a blog in my name - albeit for how much longer who knows - I thought I'd better at least report my 'demise' save people thinking, 'blimey, that Berry gets a bit lazy in the summer'.
In a way it will be a sad day bidding farewell to colleagues who have become friends and also the world of sports journalism in its purest form.
In another I will still get to mingle with aforementioned colleagues in the new position whilst also writing for Wolves' website and matchday programme.
Life has certainly changed in the seven years since I arrived at the Birmingham Mail as an enthusastic if naive young buck having previously spent three years on a weekly newspaper in Shropshire.
And changed not just in my ever-expanding waistline.
In those early days the internet was not yet at its most dominating influence and the Mail was still focused on a rolling news operation with plenty of opportunity to update stories throughout the day.
Now the deadlines have been brought forward, the worldwide web has expanded seemingly unstoppably and great store is now placed in the Birmingham Mail's website as well as the newspaper.
A damned good website it is too, which should almost make the geography of local papers less of an issue than before.
Nowhere during my time was the changing emphasis of newspapers and indeed changing culture of sport and in particular football more evident that in the decline of the Sports Argus.
Dramatic alterations in kick off times and the development of up-to-the-minute technology in terms of providing sporting results meant the vast majority of Saturday night 'pink' papers across the country took a massive hit.
Eventually, the Argus, like so many others, fell by the wayside in its most famous form.
A sign of the times? Indeed. But it is perhaps a shame that there seemingly was little attempt to look into whether such a once-thriving and still popular institution could not be continued in some Saturday evening form.
But who am I to say.
What is clear is that even now, two years on, the Argus is very much missed.
Even now, journalists visiting the area often enquire as to what exactly happened to it, and punters still lament their lack of the paper to peruse over a Saturday evening pint.
That aside, and even amid the long and sometimes gruelling hours which can intrude into home life, it remains of course both a privileged and challenging existence to actually be paid to cover sport.
And my five years on the Wolves 'beat' were rich in both excitement and variety.
From the sometimes eccentricities of Glenn Hoddle to the no-nonsense honesty of Mick McCarthy, the good humour of the players from the likes of the vastly experienced Paul Ince - always a top man to deal with by the way - to the refreshingly down-to-earth Michael Kightly, there has always been plenty of interest.
And from the Championship to the Premiership and then back again to the Championship, life has never been dull.
To have covered Wolves amid the fellowship and camaraderie of the Birmingham Mail sports staff has been a genuine pleasure.
Newspapers countrywide have had their problems in recent years, and the current financial climate may mean there are more to come, but the quality and devotion to duty of those writing and producing the Mail's sports pages mean I for one will continue to buy the paper and peruse its website long after I have gone.
Make no mistake these boys know their stuff, and deliver it with authority.
I think I am the first person in seven years to actually depart the sports desk for something outside the company - which in my opinion tells its own story about those who lead it and those who work for it.
But depart it I am, and after a final day covering the DFS Classic tennis at Edgbaston Priory - blooming hard job watching all those young, athletic ladies playing tennis - I'll be on my way.
It certainly felt sometimes that I'd travelled each and every highway - Southampton and Brighton on Tuesday nights were particular lowlights - and I'm sure on occasions I bit off more than I could chew.
But there have been oodles of laughter, and I'm struggling to remember any tears, and that's the sort of sports result most of us would take any Saturday afternoon.