National recognition for University sporting expert

Dec. 16, 2010 - PRLog -- A sports finance expert at Coventry University has won a prestigious sports writers award.

The Football Supporters’ Federation has given the FSF Writer of the Year award for the season 2009/10 to Dr. John Beech.

Dr. Beech, from Coventry University’s Business School, writes a blog called ‘Football Management’ which follows the finances and other management issues of football clubs and over the past few months, his insights into the fortunes of some of the nation’s biggest clubs has been keeping the industry in the know.

Malcolm Clarke, Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation came to Coventry personally to give the award to Dr. Beech in front of his colleagues from the Business School.

Dr John Beech said:

“To use a comic sporting, cliché, I’m over the moon. It is a tremendous honour for me to be given such a prestigious award and I’m flattered that Malcolm came to Coventry especially to give it to me. I am passionate about sport and follow the finances of football clubs with interest as my own club, Portsmouth, has had its own particular problems for some time.

“It is a very testing time for clubs at the moment, especially those that do not have rich backers. I am humbled that the FSF find my blogs informative and entertaining and consider my musings worthy of recognition!”

Dr. Beech is following in some famous footsteps. Previous winners of the award include David Conn of The Guardian and Nick Hornby, author of the cult novel ‘Fever Pitch’.

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For further information, contact Ali Bushnell, External Press and Media Relations Officer on 024 7688 8245.

To read Dr Beech’s blog log on to http://footballmanagement.wordpress.com/

Background information:

Football Supporters’ Federation
The Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) is the national supporters’ organisation for all football fans comprising more than 180,000 individual fans and members of local supporters’ organisations from every club in the professional structure and many from the pyramid.

The Federation has regular meetings with the football authorities and the Department of Culture Media and Sport, discussing a wide range of issues, many of them placed on the agenda by the FSF to take forward our policies or in response to concerns raised by supporters.

They also have more detailed meetings on specific topics with the relevant authorities or other bodies such as the Independent Football Commission and the Police Match Commanders, and meet Government and the all-party football group of MPs when necessary.

The Federation regularly takes up specific complaints and cases which are raised with it by individual members or affiliated organisations and encourages the participation of all supporters in this process.

Malcolm Clarke, Chair of the FSF

Malcolm has been a match-going fan for over 50 years. He follows Stoke City home and away.

He has been Chair of the FSF since its formation in 2002 and is the first ever supporter representative on the FA Council..

Malcolm now works as a consultant and researcher following a career in public sector senior management. He sits on a number of public bodies and believes there is still time for fans to save our game.

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The External Communications team from Coventry University promotes a wide range of initiatives, services, success stories and other related aspects of Higher Education and the achievements of its staff and students as well as comment pieces from experts.