Sports Argus: Remembering the 'sporting bible of the Midlands'

Norman Bartlam's book charts the 109 year history of The Sports Argus [Norman Bartlam] It was said that wives in the West Midlands used to call their husbands "old Argus face" - a nod to the hours many spent every Saturday night with their heads buried in the newspaper. For devoted football followers and pools players, the Sports Argus was essential reading and widely regarded as the "sporting bible of the West Midlands". Results and match reports could be read within an hour of the final whistle after a frenzy to get the publication "off stone" and ready to print.

The final edition rolled off the presses 20 years ago this month, and a new book charts the 109-year history of the paper, which ran from 1897 to 2006. "It's difficult for youngsters to think back even 20 years to the days before the internet was popular, about just how you would have got your results coming in," said author and historian Norman Bartlam. Most major cities produced their own Saturday sports papers, some printed on green, blue or pink paper, but the Argus was "second to none", he said.

"In those good old days, all matches finished more or less at ten to five without fail," he explained, "and by half past five the first editions were hitting the streets of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. " The paper ran from 1897 to 2006 [Norman Bartlam] Published by the Birmingham Mail, for many years the distinctive "pink" was the largest-selling sports paper in Britain. It covered results from the "big six" clubs, said Bartlem - Birmingham City, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers Walsall and Coventry City.

But it was also particularly good at covering non-league and amateur sport across the region, he said, including "works matches and schoolboy football - as well as lots of other sports". "It was first, it was fast and it was accurate - very rarely was there a mistake. " Copies of the paper would also be available to buy in London, including the issue covering Aston Villa's 2-1 win over Manchester United in the 1957 FA Cup final [Getty Images] "Kids would be sent to line up outside newsagents to buy it, that was their Saturday night," the author said.