⚔️ We're taking a short break, and I'd like to explain why...

Hello,

The Pinch is taking such a short break from podcasting and publication that it almost doesn’t warrant an email at all. But radio silence felt a bit odd, so I thought I’d share a little behind-the-scenes context.

The Pinch has always been, and will always be, a passion project. Attempting to carve out a media empire from Sheffield United is very much “not us” and quite a funny idea when you think about it.

We don’t want crumby sponsors on Substack or nasty ads shoved into the podcast. What we do do is pay everyone who writes for us, invest in things like microphones, keyboards, software, data packages and Zoom, and generally try to run things properly. That means turning over a modest level of revenue. These things don’t work if you lose money, which is why we eventually had to knock the DEM Blades fanzine on the head.

There’s also a simple reality to trying to do more. More podcasts, more writing and more ideas inevitably means more time spent writing, editing and producing, not just the words but the podcasts too. And if we’re going to put things out, we want them to be worth your time.

So, a wee pause.

We’ll be back to our best from Monday 23 February, but we’re taking a short breather to iron out a few exciting things, and a few less exciting but necessary ones.

What’s happening behind the scenes:

• New podcast: Memory Lane (with Andrew, Roy and Panchero Hague) - watch this space

• New podcast schedule: going forward, subscribers will get one episode of Memory Lane every Wednesday, and one episode of either Formline or Hang It In The Louvre every Thursday

• New pieces: we’ve got a backlog of written work that deserves a bit more care and attention, including editing, design and all that good stuff

• New “Blades by Numbers”: it took us a few weeks to get Blades By Numbers ready for the world, and then the biggest stats provider stopped providing stats - so we’re working on tweaks to re-invent that particular wheel

• New site design: we’ve been at this nearly four years and the site has barely changed. We want it to function better and feel a bit more like home

A quick bit of transparency too.

A paid subscription costs £5 per month on a rolling basis, or £40 per year, which works out at £3.33 a month. We have around 2,000 subscribers, of which 154 are paid.

That’s modest. But it’s enough to keep the lights on and compensate contributors for their time, energy and ridiculously good work. That only works because of those 154 paid subscribers. We’d love a few more if you can afford it.

But times are bloody tough and subscriptions are bloody everywhere. My pitch, if you’re weighing up your next subscription cull, is this: we’re the little guy, and every pound genuinely makes a huge difference to our ability to keep going.

All of which is to say, we’re not going anywhere. We’re just tinkering, tidying, and trying to make The Pinch a bit better than it was last week.

Thanks, as ever, to everyone who subscribes, reads, listens, shares, and cares. Back properly very soon.

Sam ⚔️
The Pinch