Sporting Cyclist - Sporting Cyclist

Sporting Cyclist

In late 1956, Wadley secured the backing of the publisher Charles Buchan, former football captain of Arsenal and England, who wanted a companion to his magazine, Football Monthly. Wadley told Buchan that he had a proposal which would never make him rich but wouldn't disgrace him, an approach so novel that Buchan was interested from the start. Under Buchan, the magazine changed name to Sporting Cyclist because there was already a magazine called Courier, which was too similar a name. The newsagent chain, W.H. Smith, had declined to sell the magazine because of the similarity.

Sporting Cyclist, which was always written largely by Wadley, introduced Continental racing to British readers, especially through the contributions of the Franco-American writer, René de Latour, who became race director of the Tour de l'Avenir and worked as a cycling journalist in Paris, where he had moved with his parents when he was young. His role was as the magazine's "friend of the stars", providing insights into Continental racing at a time when Cycling concentrated its reporting on domestic issues.Sporting Cyclist celebrated each Tour de France by printing its cover on yellow paper. It carried pictures from Wadley, from news agencies and from the assistant editor, Roy Green, who joined the magazine in 1960. The art editor was Glenn Steward.

The first Sporting Cyclist was published in May 1957 and it went on to sell 11,000 or more copies a month, with the exception of the Tour de France issue in September which sold more.

The cycle parts importer and advertiser, Ron Kitching, wrote:

This was a real innovation and an instant success. It was filled with exciting stories of both home and overseas events, written not only by Jock himself but also by the top cycling writers of the day - like René de Latour, Harry Aspden, Charles Ruys and Dick Snowden, Geoffrey Nicholson and David Saunders.