Alan Hedley Email & Phone Number

Golf and rugby journalist based in the North-East.Born in South Shields and educated at the town's Grammar School where he was introduced to rugby with the rest of the fat lads, he eventually reached the dizzy heights of Westoe II team and even played for the first team once, although he did play for Leeds Carnegie and Leeds Rugby League (under an assumed name of course in those fraught days of shamateurism) while exiled to Yorkshire.His journalistic career began as a reporter with the Shields Weekly News and Shields Gazette, where he experienced the joy of covering flower shows, funerals and leek festivals before persuading an unwitting Sports Editor to allow him to cover North Shields matches. From that pinnacle, he moved on to cover rugby and cricket matches before moving to the Sunderland Echo as their Newcastle United reporter which is rather like being an ice-cream salesman at the North Pole such is the Mackems' love of United (and vice versa of course).He joined the Newcastle Chronicle and Journal in 1970s as the evening paper's rugby reporter and his first big rugby match was watching Gosforth win the John Player Cup against Waterloo at Twickenham. It was the start of long association with the Newcastle club, of which he is a member and, of course, a fan. He moved to The Journal, the morning paper, as their Rugby and Golf Editor in 1985 and has covered four Rugby World Cups, two British Lions tours and numerous international matches in the Five/Six Nations, Championship as well as Gosforth, Newcastle Gosforth and now Newcastle Falcons games. Has covered rugby matches and and amateur and professional golf tournaments, at local, national and international level including the Open, US Open, Masters and USPGA, Ryder Cup for a host of national newspapers and magazines and still works for local regional golf magazine, Northern Golfer, which he helped to launch in the dim and distant past despite insisting he is retired.Married with two grown-up sons who have proved they've inherited their mother's intelligence by deciding against having anything to do with journalism, or playing golf or rugby, Alan now lives in West Boldon and still actually enjoys watching rugby and playing golf.

• Sports Journalist

  Self Employed

  Jan 2008 - Present