One thing we’re proud of is that we have continued publishing throughout 2020, despite the suspension of most football, and the challenges of producing a print magazine during lockdowns.
We have learned that we need to be fairly agile – the past year has shown that publication schedules and plans often have to be revised and adjusted. But we nevertheless need to have a plan, and here’s how we see 2021.
When issue 226 was released just before Christmas, the plan was that, by the next one in February, we’d be able to review the first phase of the Cymru Premier season and the first few weeks of the tier 2 Cymru Leagues. But as it turns out, those competitions were again suspended in late December, indefinitely.
The longer gap between issues of the ’regular’ magazine meant we could slot in one of our new publications, a second issue of Welsh Football XTRA. Published digitally in January, and in print form in the first half of February, this is a collection of ‘longer reads’, essays too long or otherwise not a good fit for the regular magazine.
Welsh Football issue 227 is planned for late February, and there will be three more editions still to come in our 2020-21 publication schedule, numbers 228, 229 and 230. WF 230 would normally be a bumper end of season review – but we’ll keep our options open as to the exact timing and content of these editions.
WF 231 onwards should be focusing on the 2021-22 season. It’s too far away to gauge how ‘normal’ the start of the new season will be, but whenever it is appropriate we will produce another comprehensive annual ‘Guide to Welsh Football’, either as WF 231 or 232. It may even be bigger and better than WF 224 was!
And it is likely there will be at least one more edition of Welsh Football Xtra, although the timing, size and content have yet to be decided.
So, despite the frustrations of lockdowns and hardly any football, there’s plenty to look forward to. We made it through the challenges of 2020 with fantastic support from our readers – I know subscribers appreciated the continued regular release of our publications – and we are committed to doing more of the same – and indeed even better – in 2021.
Full details of all our publications are always announced on our website.