Graphic Sports launches 30th anniversary celebrations

The Pioneer Editor of the Graphic Sports, Mr Joe Aggrey, has charged sports writers to use their journalistic capabilities to revive all the dying sporting disciplines in the country.

Expressing regret at the current trend of events, Mr Aggrey mentioned in particular distressed disciplines such as boxing and athletics which, he said, brought the country a lot of honours in the past but could not be found among the top and most cherished sporting disciplines today.

“This country use to have boxing champions on a frequent basis in the past and boxing was the sport that brought us medals and moved this country. It is unfair that we have allowed football to dominate the scene now” he noted.

Addressing the launch of the 30th anniversary of the Graphic Sports newspaper at the Graphic Press House in Accra  yesterday, Mr Aggrey, one-time Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports during the J.A Kufuor administration, said sports business was thriving across the globe and stressed the need for the management of the paper to aspire to increase circulation by making the Graphic Sports a daily newspaper.

Starting as a four-page black-and-white weekly, the maiden edition of Graphic Sports hit the newsstands on April 23, 1985. However, during its 30-year existence, Ghana’s top selling sports paper has metamorphosed into a 16-page, tri-weekly which appears on the news-stand on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The Editor of Graphic Sports, Mr Felix  Abayateye, who described the paper as “the dinosaur of all sports papers in the country” and paid glowing tribute to the founding fathers of the paper, including a former Managing Director of the then Graphic Corporation,  Mr David Fiadonu, who mooted the idea of a sports newspaper for the company, a former editor of the Daily Graphic, Nana Addo Twum; Perpetual Crentsil, the first female sports writer of the paper, and ace cartoonist Zingaro, among others, whose contributions over time had made the Graphic Sports the paper of choice.

Mr Abayateye expressed disappointment at the disappearance of other pioneer sports newspapers which were once strong competitors of the Graphic Sports, saying “it is sad these papers have lost the survival battle”. 

Looking into the future with great hope, the editor gave an assurance that the paper would strive to meet the changing trends and interests of readers, while maintaining its high standards and visibility on the market.

The Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL),  Mr Ken Ashigbey, entreated the electronic media to encourage their audience to strive to read the Graphic Sports and other newspapers beyond just listening to newspaper reviews as such a reading habit when cultivated, would increase their knowledge.

“The Graphic Sports and all the other brands of our company serve as a fodder for many of the radio and television stations and so as we collaborate to compete, we will ask that you use your programmes to encourage people to read,” he stressed.

As part of the anniversary programme spanning six months, Graphic Sports would from next week commence a masthead competition,  a 13-week television quiz with attractive prizes at stake, five-a-side community football tournament, corporate fun games, a reader- loyalty promotion and a forum on the promotion of sports in Ghana.

The celebrations will be climaxed with a gala night during which some key personalities, sporting legends and some corporate partners will be honoured for their immense contributions to the success of the Graphic Sports.