Five Questions with...Ally Palmer (Nutmeg Magazine)
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This week, it’s five questions with Ally Palmer, founder of Nutmeg magazine. Nutmeg and The Herald recently collaborated on a special Euro 2024 edition. Ally expands on how it came about and his memories of tournament pull-outs…
Five Questions with…Ally Palmer (Nutmeg Magazine)
How did the idea for a Euro 2024 edition come about, and how did it become a collaboration with The Herald?
We'd been having a few discussions with The Herald since last summer about ways we might cooperate and when it became obvious that Scotland would qualify it felt the right fit to do a Euro ’24 special edition. At first it was going to be a magazine supplement in the newspaper but then we suggested doing it in the Nutmeg format. This was better for us as we hoped it might help increase brand awareness by reaching a new audience.
Nutmeg has never really been able to cover tournaments properly as we see our articles as being less time-tied than most publications, so this was a great opportunity so show what we could produce, along with The Herald’s football journalists.
2. Do you have any memories of tournament-specific media and were there any that inspired your Euro '24 issue?
I worked in newspapers previously and had the chance to work on a few tournament supplements. The first one that really stands out for me was The Guardian's Euro '96 supplement which was the first daily newspaper to do this. It led to a huge increase in football coverage in the form of Saturday and Monday supplements that still exist today, though those are decreasing. I also used to love their small tournament guides that contained all the squads and fixtures. It’s really not the same trying to find that info online while watching live games!
With the Euro ’24 edition we couldn't really do this type of thing (as much as we'd love to, along with a wall chart!) partly because of when it was published, but also because we wanted it to reflect the style of Nutmeg as much as possible.
3. The magazine is full of great stories, interviews and pictures, but is there anything you're especially proud of?
Nutmeg is generally text-driven that concentrates on great stories with limited images, but it was great to have access to The Herald's photo agencies as well as their archive. Editor Daniel Gray spent a very happy day at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow going through the files for Euro ’92 and Euro ’96 and we uncovered some brilliant images.
4. Your stock of the magazine has sold out (although it can still be bought on The Herald site). Are there any plans for another run closer to the tournament?
It would be great but we'll see how things go. Nutmeg uses a book publisher so our print deadlines are a lot longer than The Herald’s.
5. Other than Nutmeg, are there any other sports magazines/books/articles that you're currently enjoying?
I'm huge fan of the work of Glory magazine which is a photo-led publication that visits countries all over the world and looks at their football culture. For example, the first issue back in 2016 (the same year we launched) was the Faroe Islands and their latest is Scotland which we feature briefly in and had some input in terms of ideas.
I tend to read too many football books but that was what got me into the idea of Nutmeg. Books such as those by Michael Calvin, Simon Kuper, Jonathan Wilson and David Winner were certainly an influence.
Some recent favourites were:
The System by Graeme McDowall, which looks at an alternative to the performance school route for first team football.
Be Good, Love Brian by Craig Bromfield. It’s an incredible tale of two young lads who were taken in by Brian Clough and his family.
You can still buy the issue from The Herald’s online shop here: https://heraldandtimes.myshopify.com/products/euro-24-scotland
Recommended Reading
I’ll end with a three things I enjoyed this week and you might have missed:
Michael Grant’s piece on in The Times, which details the rise and fall of Anthony Stokes.
Jonathan Liew’s column on Henry Winter. While Winter’s departure from The Times isn’t relevant to Scottish football, the idea that it signals a shift in football journalism - away from the ‘big beasts’ and towards a more multi-faceted approach - is an interesting one. Winter’s a highly regarded journalist (as he was keen to point out in his leaving post), but I’m not sure how much of an impression he makes with anyone under 40?
This is a homer, but for anyone wanting a reminder of how good football can be, listen to Craig Telfer talking about Stenhousemuir’s first league title on The Terrace.
Next time out: The Scotland Women’s Team manager, Pedro Martinez Losa, hit out at the media after their recent win over Slovakia, but were his criticisms fair, or should he have kept his head down?
See you in a fortnight.