Honest Sport going forward, and why I’m ‘Inverse William’ - Town Square #7

When I was once a football-playing school kid in London, I had a classmate called William. Shy, quiet and consequently not very engaging.

But when our class went home each evening and logged onto MSN Messenger to gossip and talk about girls, he was the complete inverse. Hilarious, lively and quite simply a totally different person.

So, why am I telling you this?

Well, Substack is a place for writers like William. A place writers share their personal stories to engage with their audience. Their followers want to pay to support the writer because they feel a sense of ‘connection’. It’s called the patron model. Substack is perfect for it.

But for me, I am ‘Inverse William’. Engaging with friends but terribly serious online.

Investigating doping is a passion of mine, but it’s also a very litigious and research-intensive field. It’s a topic I take very seriously, and I am careful with my words when writing every post on Honest Sport. As such, it doesn’t leave me much room to be as funny as William.

Instead, my engagement with you all comes from the specialist content I send each week. Therefore, for the patron model to work, and for the long-term viability of Honest Sport, I think it is key that I put that engagement behind a paywall. The content is what makes this Substack unique. Not me - I’m ‘Inverse William’.

Honest Sport is a specialist website focussed solely on doping in professional sport.

Therefore, I’ve decided now that going forward to put the vast majority of future posts behind a paywall including bi-weekly press round-ups and investigations.

I’m also always available for you to ask me questions about doping in the comments section.

In the meantime, I will work on being more like William.

Thanks to you all for engaging with the content I’ve posted over the last year.

See you behind the paywall both tomorrow, and then on Friday for another post on doping in tennis,

Edmund