"The Pink"
Many local newspapers in the mid-20th century produced a special sports edition on Saturday evening. Before football results were widely available on television and radio such editions were the source of results for players of the football pools. Serious players needed the results as soon as possible since, on afternoons where there were relatively few matches ending in a draw, the payouts from the pools would be large and claims would have to be made quickly, typically by telegram. While the regular evening edition typically "went to bed" in mid afternoon, if not earlier, the sports edition had to be on news stands as soon as possible after the conclusion of football games across the country. Most games started at 3 p.m. and concluded around 4:45 p.m. The sports edition was usually available by 6 p.m. It was popular with newsagents who capitalized on the rush of customers its appearance generated to sell cigarettes and other "impulse buys". The edition was small compared to the regular edition, often as few as 3 broadsheets, making 12 pages when folded. Plenty of space was devoted to advertising, as well as lists of results and short descriptions of games.
In the 1960s the Gazette began printing the sports edition on pink newsprint. Soon the edition began to be known as "the Pink". To encourage people to buy the sports edition, at a time when television was affecting its sales, competitions were run "In the Pink" with cash prizes.
In a similar vein, a sports newspaper published in Sheffield is known as the "Green Un" for the green newsprint used.
Read more about this topic: Evening Gazette (Teesside)
Famous quotes containing the word pink:
“The same dreadful set,
the same family of orange and pink faces
carved and dressed up like puppets
who wait for their jaws to open and shut.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)