"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:
“And I threw a little earth
on the pink coffin
covered by the fake plastic grass
and said O.K., God,
if it’s the end of the world,
it must be necessary.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites—rather than fighting for jobs or education—fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.”
—Jesse Jackson (b. 1941)