Journalism student named Sports Writer of the Year

HND Practical Journalism student Findlay Brown has been named Sport Writer of the Year at the Herald Student Press Awards which were held on 14 May.

Finlay entered a series of articles as part of his submission with one of his stories receiving special praise from the judges. The story covered a community football team who had to rearrange their fixtures after being told by the league they entered, that some of their players “weren’t disabled enough”. Read the full article here.

The Partick Thistle Charitable Trust (PTCT), which was established in 2011 as the charity arm of the Scottish football side, runs numerous programmes in Springburn, north Glasgow. One of these programmes, ‘Thistle Works’, offers football training for people with additional support needs during weekly sessions at Petershill Park in Springburn.

Findlay had produced the article as part of his Practical Magazine Journalism assessment day on his NCTJ (fast-track) diploma course and had published it on the college’s online student news site, the Clyde Insider.

At the awards ceremony, Head of Football Sites Scotland for Newsquest (owner of the Herald), Joshua Barrie said the article, “was fascinating, it was complex and it was reported with all the hallmarks. It had multiple voices, it had a clear explanation and had a right of reply as well,” adding that it was a “worthy winner.”

Speaking after winning at the awards which were held on the 14 May, Findlay said:

“I was delighted to be chosen for the award. It’s always nice to have the work you put in recognised by an institution like the Herald.

“However, it would not have been possible without my lecturers at Glasgow Clyde College, Pete, Ross, Rob and Stephen, all of whom invested so much into us as students. 

“I can’t thank them enough for their help in getting me to where I am, and where I hope to be.”

"The PTCT is such an inspiring organisation which carries out a variety of different projects to help the local community and I felt that their work should be highlighted to the rest of Glasgow. I hope that more journalists will continue to provide coverage to their amazing services."

The Clyde Insider was also nominated for Student Newsbrand of the Year, and was named one of the runners-up on the evening.

Curriculum Manager for Journalism, Ross Nixon said: “We are delighted for Findlay as he has worked so hard on the course this year achieving his gold standard diploma demonstrating a wide variety of excellent knowledge and skills. Outside of the course, Findlay continued to work as a freelance journalist and prior to coming on the course, he took on so many work experience opportunities. All of this hard work and effort has now been recognised with this national award and we couldn’t be more proud of him.

“I was also delighted that the judges recognised the brilliant articles which have been published by our students across our journalism courses this year. There’s a high standard of work that has been produced with a lot of stories covered over the last nine months.”

 If you or someone you know is interested in studying journalism at Glasgow Clyde College, click on this link to find out more about our journalism courses. 

Images show L-R, Top Findlay Brown with Joshua Barrie, bottom Ross Nixon, Findlay Bown, Beth Templeton (fellow student) and Robert Blair and Peter MacRae.