Three in a row for Monarchs' programme

NEWS Saturday 28th December 2024, 11:00am

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

Speedway Star have announced that the Stellar Monarchs programme has again been selected as the best in British Speedway – for the third year running!

Howard Jones and Paul Ricketts have again assessed programmes from all the clubs in the UK and once again the Monarchs' issue has finished streets ahead. Again also the Academy issue we produce for our National League team did very well, coming fourth in the whole country with only Oxford's Premiership and Championship magazines getting between our two productions.

This season's issue recorded a remarkable 99 out of 100 in the scoring, along with securing the best front cover ahead of Sheffield and Poole.

It is very much a team effort for the Stellar Monarchs issue nowadays, and a great deal of thought and effort goes into it. Graham Muncie takes on the substantial task of tracking down home and away riders for our weekly interviews, and along with Mike Hunter produces much of the programme text.

John Campbell and Alex Harkess give us their views each week, and we report with photos from every away match. Len Jones covers the goings-on of the Fans Trust and the MSSC. And we have Lord Rocket's cheerful recollections from the history of that night's visitors. And we mustn't forget Ed the Monarch's fun page!

The all-important programme design is the territory for Graeme and Gordon Campbell to use their expertise, producing the lively and colourful layout every week.

Of course our unrivalled photography team has a key role to play. Jack Cupido has been with us for over 40 years and is always first in on a Friday to provide illustrations to go with home match publicity. Peter Hill and Jamie Kenny supply their quality action every week and in recent times we have added Stephen Fruzynski who does a superb job of producing atmospheric and off-beat shots from around the circuit.

Howard Jones sets exacting standards in ways which some people might not even think of, so we are managing to comply with those! And yes, before anyone says it, we are all too aware that it is about time we got our Speedway team back up at the top where our programme team are.