View From the Editor: And now the end is here - February 2008  

Readers, it is time to get out your finest linen handkerchiefs, pour yourselves a stiff gin and slimline tonic and start learning how to ‘knit one, pearl one’, because, as we warned you last month, this is the FINAL EVER issue of S&T in this format. We kid you not, we would not be so cruel. No indeed. This is it. The end. Finito. Cappiche?
After nearly five years, 578 pages of content and a mammoth consecutive 58 missives without so much as a golden handshake nor a month off for good behaviour, S&T is hanging up our wizened keyboard and retiring to a villa in Switzerland! Sensational we know! But then again we did always say we wanted to retire before we were 60.
Actually, that bit about Switzerland is a complete lie as in fact we have moved to Devon where our nearest neighbours, rather than being IOC members, include swans, horses and even the odd llama. However, lolling around Switzerland sounds a taddette more glam than picking straw out of our hair and negotiating muddy farm tracks to get to our car. The car being necessary on account of the nearest shop/human being being a squillion miles away.
So, it is goodbye from the publication that brought you such exclusives as 'Elvis Presley being alive and well in Dubai' and 'Jesus Christ broadcasting on the internet from Milan', and who can forget the unwrapping of the festive yet cheeky turkey and cranberry bread-based snack that was the superlative 'singing sandwich'? Or even the breaking news that the Spice Girls were reforming before splitting up again? (Hang on, that last one wasn't us per se, but you get the picture, it was all globally-important, stop-the-front-page sort of stuff, blah, blah, blah and all that).
If we weren’t bringing you the latest news about how technology was having an impact on sport, then you can be sure we were off swanning around the world at some governing body/technology provider/PR company’s expense enjoying fine wines and divine cuisine in some of the most salubrious establishments the world can offer.

Good Times, Bad Times

But we can assure you it hasn’t all been fun. Goodness no. There was one particular time for example when we stayed in a hotel room that only had one bathroom and wasn’t anywhere near bigger than S&T Towers. And if that wasn’t harrowing enough, the champagne was served at room temperature and was less than 10 years old. But don’t worry, we bally well complained. Obviously we complained not for ourselves you understand, but for you, our beloved and loyal readers who, quite frankly deserved only the best. (Pauses momentarily to dab our eyes and watch the EastEnders omnibus).
Although pure laziness dictates that we leave it to our favourite sports properties and rights owners to discuss what technology has actually done for sport over the last five years (so make sure you read the two comment pieces that follow this FINAL column), we thought we would reminisce about a few of our favourite moments before we shuffle off this mortal web-based coil. Actually, make that three favourite moments as we have a field to plough and seeds to scatter (or is that the other way around?)

Thanks for the memories....

So here we go - three favourite all-time memories from our time living and breathing the heady social whirlwind existence that is, or indeed was, S&T. Sniff. In third place has to be hanging with the petrolheads at the Corsica stage of the World Rally Championships (or should that be ‘sliding’ as we struggled to keep our footing on a very muddy hillside?) As that experience was slotted in the middle of two vomit-inducing overnight ferry trips to get to the island and back in the fiercest storms Beelzebub Himself could muster, it was bound to be unforgettable.
In second place, although we have many Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor episodes we could recount, what with us being the darting guru’s primary stalkers and all, it is a tie between being personally waved off by him and legendary darts commentator Sid Waddell at Stoke railway station after the first ever Premier League of Darts evening, and on another occasion being almost run over by Taylor in Blackpool as he demonstrated to S&T his new car with built-in anti-collision technology. Which he forgot to activate. (“Stand there while I reverse towards you. Stand there, honestly, just stand there. Oh s**t, MOVE. NOW!”)
In first place however, S&T will always recall the Starsky and Hutch-style thrill of being driven between lines of grid-locked cars through the streets and alleyways of Jacksonville at top-speed with sirens a-blazing, just because we were late for a Superbowl television interview. Those local coppers were very hospitable in Florida! (Or perhaps they misunderstood our English accent and thought S&T was anchoring for the BBC rather than merely appearing on some spurious cable channel to be laughed at for not understanding every single intricacy of American Football. S&T has just one word to say to that interviewer. Cricket).
Since the announcement last month that this would be the very FINAL edition of S&T as an ezine, we have been overwhelmed by your best wishes and heartfelt thanks for the (almost) five years of rantings/insight that we have delivered to you each and every month, come rain or shine. Your recommendations on how we should now fill our lonely evenings have been taken into consideration and obviously just require lavish donations, so we’ll be sure to keep you informed of our new bank details.

We thank you, most sincerely

In the meantime, S&T would truly like to thank all our readers and of course our commercial partners for their support and feedback over the years, even though the overwhelming majority of it was generated by S&T meeting Sportacus on the set of Lazy Town recently. (Darn, if only we knew you were that easy to please we would have skipped such junkets like the FIFA World Cup and Beijing Olympic venue tours etc and stayed in bed).
For those of you now cowering in your woodsheds and simpering like wounded animals over the loss of a limb (or is that just us?), fear not, S&T will be back (kind of) in a glossy, revamped, quarterly supplement that you will first find nestling pertly in the centre pages of the March issue of our parent publication, SportBusiness International.
We guess that this is the publishing equivalent of being grounded, based on too many years of mentioning Exeter City FC and flitting around the world in search of the ultimate sports-technology-story/canapé in a carefree manner (see above), although it could be that we just had one too many mates around last time SportBusiness International went on holiday with Great Aunt Maud. How were we to know that over 4m people would turn up and trash the place? We only posted an invitation on BeboFaceSpace after all. Good Times.
Before S&T signs off for EVER, we would like to share news of an event with you that is up there with the splitting of the atom and discovery of penicillin and other such Nostradamusy type events as far as we are concerned. We suggest you have a seat before reading this next bit. Or even a lie-down.

Life can't get any better

Check this out. S&T only blooming well went and introduced the chairman of Exeter City (the fine Denise Watts) to ‘The Power’ himself (both pictured right) after the Premier League of Darts recently hit Devon (in a town that is too terrible to name but suffice to say recently stole Exeter City's best striker, Jamie Mackie, as opposed to that other town in Devon that’s also too terrible to name, that stole our other best striker, Lee Phillips. Thank goodness they don’t have a penchant for curry-filled pasties in either of those towns, else they would have whipped them from our on-site caterers at the Real St James Park by now and there would be a lot of unhappy Exeter City fans out there looking for replacement pastry snacks instead of worrying about reaching the play-offs). Anyway, as S&T sat back in our leather armchair, nursing a ginger ale and soda in a very pleasant smoke-free hotel bar and conversed with both our darts hero and head of our favourite soccer team AT THE SAME TIME, S&T felt a warm glow in our heart and realised that all was finally well in the world, and that our work here was utterly, truly and irrevocably done. End of.
So all that remains to be said, is goodbye to you all and we hope you can join us in our new home at SportBusiness Towers as we begin life as a centrefold, or should we say supplement. We are nearly 60 after all.
See you in our exciting new format! And of course at BT Centre in London on Friday 13 June for the triumphant return of Sport and Technology: The Conference, in association with BT Media and Broadcast. Be there, or be unlucky. The choice is yours!

Rachael Church-Sanders
Editor

rchurch@sportandtechnology.com

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