Page 14 - Sport Culture and the Media

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

(FIRS T EDITION)

Why would anyone not a dedicated masochist write an academic book? A relish
for self-inflicted punishment must be the best qualification for the task. What
really sustains the author (apart from ego and stimulants) is that, one day,
the work (in both senses) will no longer be theirs. The book, conceived and
executed in solitude, is finally a social product – it is written for people and,
without those precious people, the book could never be written.
With the usual nervousness about advertent and inadvertent omissions, I
thank on this occasion those who come to mind as indispensable: my family in
the UK, especially the ones who haven’t been acknowledged before – Joanna,
Oliver, Alex and Tony – and my family in Australia who always get a mention –
the inimitable Daniel and Madeleine. The longstanding and more recent friends
and colleagues I honourably mention this time around are Therese and Grace
Davis, Sue Dean, Mick Dwyer, Geoff and Dimity Lawrence, Helen Macallan,
Kevin Markwell, Jim McKay, Toby Miller, Chuck Morris, Jules Pavlou Kirri,
Deborah Stevenson, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Dave Whitson.
I thank my other immediate academic colleagues for being exemplary work-
mates, and publicly acknowledge my debt to the life-saving, ever-engaging
administrative double act, Shelagh Lummis and Kerry Beaumont (deft
architect of the index). Richard Lever also provided some very handy research
assistance at strategically significant moments. The Research Management
Committee of the University of Newcastle provided generous funding for the
study of sports journalists. Finally, Stuart Allan was as congenial a series
editor as Justin Vaughan and Gaynor Clements were encouraging publisher and
editorial assistant (respectively). I hope that this book bears some reasonable
resemblance to the object they had in mind.
David Rowe