STARTING A WEEKLY 



suggestion was made that the Sport Set was a good 

 title, and a weekly paper would yield more profit than 

 the magazine. Therefore I got up a dummy, and was 

 approached by J. J. Bentley, for many years President 

 of the Football League, and a vice-president of the 

 Football Association. His daughter took my son, 

 *' The Scout," for better and for worse. There had been 

 a little paper known as Football Chat, and it was 

 suggested that the latter title be acquired and in- 

 corporated with the Sport Set. It meant a little capital 

 being found and the scheme formulated. I always 

 had the idea that racing was the chief attraction of 

 the paper or should never have consented to begin 

 the new venture in the month of October. But there 

 seemed an idea that football articles and news are as 

 great an attraction to the public, so the Sport Set 

 was launched in the late autumn. If I had waited 

 patiently until the following spring I quite believe 

 that the Sport Set as a penny weekly would have been 

 running to-day, and as great a success with regard to 

 esteem and profit as several of those published and 

 sold at twopence, which, frankly, it competed against. 

 We took the old Winning Post offices in Essex Street ; 

 surely that was a bit of luck to begin with, for the 

 Winning Post had gone ahead in the same premises. 

 It was soon seen that football did not sell the paper ; 

 it was the racing in it which appealed to racing men 



i and Bohemia, and there were diverse views as to what 

 really was the best thing to put in it. My public I 

 was pretty sure of, but there were some bad moments 

 to go through at directors' meetings, for no two 



i seemed to agree on the most important matters ; yet 

 everyone seemed opposed to my ideas concerning the 

 paper. Mr H. G. Norris, who is much interested in 

 football, was the chairman of the company. Mr 

 p 225 



