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Welcome to the Friday Freebie, the free article coming at you every week. Something slightly different as we end the first month of the new year but look out towards the end for what I want to offer you.
More often than not this season I’ve not been as organised as I usually am when it comes to choosing where to watch football on a weekend or Tuesday evening.
By that I mean I generally start at the end of the previous month or beginning of the next and set out what takes my eye when looking through the various fixture lists across the South East and South Coast.
It’s never set in stone either that I won’t change, much happens in football on a daily basis let alone weekly and certain things can change your mind to make a different game have a different appeal to it.
I try not to watch the same teams too often unless it’s my own in Barnet. I also keep in my mind the feel or the need to keep this blog as diverse as possible, to highlight there is a lot of football and clubs out there who are ploughing away their own furrow.
I have a list aside from my monthly set of clubs I’d like to head along to be that they’ve invited me down to them, something catches my eye such as the food offering or things happening off the pitch that I want to see for myself.
Like the monthly list, it changes during the season, generally with more being added than removed. I don’t achieve all, primarily because up until ten weeks ago I had a full time job four days a week.
Since that point I took a chance, a risk. I’d reached a point in that job where it was a battle to ask for the simple materials I needed to do that particular work each day so I worked out how I could get by financially and head forwards.
I won’t lie, it’s been tight at times, but I’ve managed to float and still am as we head into the second month of the year. It could well be the crunch month without a shadow of a doubt, I do have a tiny job that provides something every month, I have the blogging and programme columns brining in money and also Amazon work too, the latter having died off in January as everywhere does and hopefully a pick up once again in February.
I’m sure many of you will read that and go wow, but in many different ways. Wow, because you see someone who’s just decided to go hell-bent on a whim almost to achieve what they want in a current climate which is uncertain and not really favourable to the average person.
Wow, because it’s not something everyone would have the balls or the courage to do and I respect that, we’re all built differently in the way we approach things.
And wow, because you think ‘you know what, good on you for believing in yourself to make it work and giving it a shot’. I’m sure you’ve nodded at one of those at least if not more.
As a writer you want your work to be read wherever you place it, be that in a magazine, a newspaper, online in various forms, I am no different. My work takes in various different formats, club programmes around the country, websites in Sussex, magazines you can physically buy a few times a year and much more.
The bread and butter is www.footballwriting.co.uk, what started out as somewhere to really pen or type my thoughts has grown over the seven years it’s been in operation into a blog that has begun to pay me a living.
Now I’m looking for it to BE A LIVING alongside many more avenues but it’s not without hard work. Out there are some of you who subscribe monthly and for that I really thank you for giving it a basis to be started.
Some of you have subscribed in the past which I’m also thankful for, but I’d like your custom again. The blog has always been an open book, it’s yours to read so why not suggest what you’d like to see or what you think others would agree is a great topic to be covered. With that in mind, contact me personally, trevork31@sky.com and pick yourself up an offer to come back.
The beauty of my presence on Substack is I can pretty much control my own terms in payment, I can control my own subscriber base and what I offer, and I can take all of you elsewhere if I ever choose to do so.
Many of you have subscribed for free over the last nearly three years and access is limited to these Friday Freebies and the opening paragraphs to the articles behind the paywall. Beyond that is 8 more per month and an archive that spans almost 850 in total, you get a lot for your money especially when I see others offer less for the same price.
As per those above who’ve been there before I’m encouraging you to contact me, trevork31@sky.com, get yourself an offer and give it a try. After all, you’ve subscribed because you’re into non-league football, why not take it one step further and find out how deep the game really goes?
We’re not talking full price here either, one off offers going out to free subscribers only and valid for a full 12 months, it might actually surprise you what goes on and what doesn’t get highlighted below the professional leagues.
If you’ve made it this far thank you very much for reading and I’d really love for you to be reading more, don’t hesitate to find out what I can do for you.
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