You’ll work closely with the Editor and editorial teams of Cyclingnews and Procycling to efficiently edit and repurpose existing content as well as writing headlines, captions and opinion pieces to give context to the week’s events.

You’ll already be working in an editorial position within magazines, newspapers or online media. You’ll be able to demonstrate good writing skills and have a proven ability to hit regular deadlines and work well under pressure, plus flexibility, creativity and adaptability. A good working knowledge of cycle sport is also preferable.

In addition to a competitive salary, generous holiday entitlement, comprehensive training programmes and additional benefits, you’ll be working for one of the UK’s leading sports publishers in a buoyant and growing sector, working on a product at the cutting edge of digital publishing.

To apply you will need to persuade us with a fantastic covering letter and CV that you are our ideal App Deputy Editor.

Click here for more details.

• For other recent sports journalism job news, click here

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

Hugh Robertson, the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, is the next high-profile guest for a SJA Ladbrokes Lunch, being staged in central London on Thursday, June 7.

SJA Ladbrokes Lunches are open to all working media, as well as journalism students, sports officials and even politicians, though there is a strict limit on numbers we can accommodate, and priority is always given to SJA members and those first to book.

Attendance at this two-course lunch at the Olde Cock Tavern in Fleet Street costs £12 (including VAT) for SJA members, and £24 (including VAT) for non-members. If anyone has any complaints about the level of VAT charged, we suggest that they take it up with the minister…

A former officer in the Life Guards who saw active service in Northern Ireland and Sarajevo, Hugh Robertson was first elected to parliament as the Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent in 2001. After several years as the shadow minister for sport, as he told the SJA Sporting Question Time Debate in March 2010, he wanted no other job in government than the sport portfolio.

Robertson was duly  appointed Minister for Sport and the Olympics when the Coalition came to power in May 2010.

Robertson is a keen cricketer who has played for the MCC, he was a county-standard hockey player and, most importantly, he supports Chelsea.

Our usual lunch protocols will apply – after we have enjoyed two-course lunch at the Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street, the minister will answer questions on an on-the-record basis (unless our guest specifically asks to go off-the-record on any point, in which case we expect that request to be honoured).

This SJA lunch, generously sponsored by Ladbrokes, represents an outstanding opportunity for feature writers, chief sports writers and correspondents from regional as well as national newspapers and broadcasters for some headline-grabbing copy.

Payment for the lunch needs to be made by cheque (payable to “SJA”), and needs to be made in advance of the lunch. Anyone requiring a VAT invoice needs to advise us, and they will be sent such by the Treasurer.

Rights-free images from the event will be made available on request.

All attendees are also expected to ensure that they make mention of Ladbrokes and the Sports Journalists’ Association event in their published or broadcast reports.

HOW TO BOOK
The SJA lunch will take place in a private room at the Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street, EC4Y 1AA, directly opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. The venue is served by several rail and Tube stations, include Charing Cross, Embankment, Temple and City Thameslink.

Lunch will start from 12.30pm.

Places are expected to be in great demand and will be allocated on a first-come, first-reserved basis, with preference given to SJA members.

The cost is £12 (including VAT) for fully paid-up SJA members, and £24 (including VAT) for non-members, to include a two-course meal and coffee. Guests are expected to buy their own drinks.

• Contact Steven Downes by email to stevenWdownes@btinternet.com (please indicate whether a vegetarian meal is required or if you have other special dietary requirements; these have to be ordered in advance), and write “Hugh Robertson lunch” in the subject field of your email.
• Payment, with cheques payable to the SJA, may be made on the day, or can be sent to the Treasurer, Randall Northam, 1 Evelyn Court, Malvern Road, Cheltenham, GL50 2JR.
• Payment may be expected from anyone who books a place at this lunch but does not attend.

All details are subject to change.

First posted May 16.

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities

Accreditation for the Aviva Premiership Rugby Final 2012 at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday May 26, 2012, is being handled via www.premiershiprugbydata.com

Accreditation is now open here for all media but closes at 12 noon on Tuesday, May 22. Requests made after this time will not be processed.

Applications should be made through the online system available at www.premiershiprugbydata.com. Those not registered for that system should email accreditation@premiershiprugby.com to request a registration form.

Twickenham Stadium annual pass holders

Annual pass holders should still apply through the Premiership Rugby system, as this will allow you to apply for additional facilities such as car parking. If you do not apply through the Premiership Rugby system, you will risk not being able to access the facilities you wish.

Full instructions on the collection of passes and other information will be confirmed by email on confirmation of your application.

Any queries should also be directed to accreditation@premiershiprugby.com

Many will find the prologue to Richard Hughes’s autobiography an agonising read.

The scene is a traffic jam on the approach to Ascot racecourse in the summer of 1996. Cars and trailers are snaking along at a snail’s pace, while the pavements either side are full of racegoing pedestrians.

Hughes is desperate for a pee. In fact, “desperate” doesn’t adequately describe it.

He’s drunk a bottle and a half of champagne, eaten 10 whole oranges, and taken not one, not two, but 14 “pee pills” in a bid to lose fluid – and therefore weight – before his ride on Oscar Schindler in the Flat season’s summer jewel, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes.

Until this moment, driving in from Newmarket that morning, Hughes couldn’t understand why none of his self-administered treatment had produced so much as a dribble.

Now everything had kicked in. He was in agony. And if he didn’t make it soon, he would have to piss himself.

Then the traffic cleared a little and he managed to get into the jockeys’ car park. He got out of his car and sprinted to the old brick toilet block. By now he was, quite literally, doubled up in agony. It took him all his time to drop his trousers and sit down. And then he peed. And he peed. After he had been peeing for about 30 seconds, the relief was indescribable. Then he fainted.

Ten minutes later, he came round. He was lying on his back on the cubicle floor. He was dirty, wet, and he smelled bad.

So begins A Weight Off My Mind. And so it continues in much the same vein: a revealing and often shocking account of the life and times of one of racing’s most unlikely stars.

Too tall to be a jockey – he stands 5ft 9ins tall – and too heavy to be a jockey – men who are that tall aren’t meant to weigh only 8st 8lbs – Hughes is also too talented a horseman not to be a jockey.

The book, written in collaboration with the 2011 Racing Journalist of the Year, Lee Mottershead, is the warts-and-all story of the son of Irish racing legend, Dessie Hughes, from the boy’s start as a seven-year-old professional jockey on the pony racing circuit, through his arrival in England in 1994, and subsequent associations with trainers and owners including Richard Hannon, Prince Khalid Abdullah, Sir Michael Stout, Sir Henry Cecil and, of course, the Queen.

Hughes is never better than when he is talking about horses: from his pony racing ally, Chestnut Lady, to the great Canford Cliffs, and many of the thoroughbreds he rode in between.

But the most compelling part of the book is Hughes’s battle against his weight – and against his alcoholism. He started drinking champagne for its dehydrating effects. But he also drank beer in Newmarket’s most rundown, out-of-the-way pubs, simply because he wanted to get drunk, in private if possible.

It wasn’t long before his behaviour spiralled out of control, taking him down a dark road of excess and addiction, a descent that brought misery to both himself and his loyal, long-suffering wife, Lizzie, the daughter of Hannon. “I thought alcoholics drank from bottles concealed inside brown paper bags,” he says. “It turned out that they came in all shapes and sizes. One of them was a 5ft 9in Irishman.”

His story has a happy ending. On Easter Sunday 2005, Hughes took what he intended would be his last-ever drink, a pint of beer. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous, and to his strong Christian faith, so it seems to have turned out. He hasn’t touched a drop since.

If nothing else, this brutally self-aware account – one suspects that telling his story has been additional therapy – might offer hope to others in the midst of similar personal trauma.

But it’s not all about the booze. A Weight Off My Mind also provides an insight into racing itself – whether it be in Britain and Ireland, on the European mainland, or in Mumbai – and why there is “no sensation in the world that compares to riding as a jockey”.

Oh, if you’re wondering – Hughes managed to ride Oscar Schindler that day and the horse came a wholly respectable fourth.

• A Weight Off My Mind: My Autobiography by Richard Hughes with Lee Mottershead (Racing Post Books, Hardback, 298pp, £20).

• For more book reviews and news from the sports publishing business, click here

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

Ric Sumner joins as senior news editor, where he’ll work alongside David Jordan, and report to executive editor David Parsons and deputy editor Stephen Bond.

Sumner was previously the editor of the Oxford Journal and group editor of the Oxfordshire Guardian series and the Basingstoke Observer.

Paul Smith also joins Sportsbeat’s backbench from the Grimsby Telegraph, where he was deputy sports editor.

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

Coca-Cola, Official Sponsor of UEFA EURO 2012™, have teamed up with talkSPORT to offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for one aspiring young journalist, shining a light on the best of British youth.

The successful candidate will receive a six-month paid internship working across all talkSPORT’s media channels, giving them a chance to display his or her passion for sport, starting with an incredible assignment as the Coke Fan Reporter at UEFA Euro 2012™ in Poland and Ukraine.

To find out how to apply for this unique experience and win a dream start to your career in journalism go to www.talkSPORT.co.uk/coke

• For other recent sports journalism job news, click here

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

We have vacancies for two talented live bloggers, who will shape our coverage of the Games as it happens. The demands of live publishing are significant, and the successful candidates must display the capacity to thrive in this uniquely pressured environment.

Our live bloggers will produce instant content across all Olympic sports, will interact with our reporters and correspondents at the venues, and will drive reader interaction. Crucially, the live bloggers will shape the tone of the Telegraph‘s coverage, and will be able to entertain as well as inform. Humour, warmth and wit are as vital as speed, stamina and accuracy. In-depth kayak knowledge isn’t a must, but a deep and broad understanding of the Olympics is a distinct advantage. Flair, stamina and technical efficiency are essential.

To apply, email your CV, which will include experience of working for national titles in a live environment, via the apply now button. To complete your application, please attach a succinct submission which outlines:

1) Why you want to work for Telegraph Sport during the Olympics
2) Three examples of recent live blogs written for a major audience
3) Five elements you think an Olympics live blog needs to have

Closing date for applications is Wednesday May 16 2012. Successful candidates who prove themselves during the Olympics will be considered for future opportunities with Telegraph Sport.

To apply, click here.

• For other recent sports journalism job news, click here

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

Former News of the World and Sun editor, Rebekah Wade: she had to spell things out for the PM

To date, I have written seven Carry On novels. The Leveson Inquiry is tempting me to write another: Carry On Rupert. The proceedings descended close to farce today when Rebekah Brooks revealed that Prime Minister David Cameron signed off his text messages to her with “LOL”, thinking he was saying “lots of love”.

Brooks had to tell the PM what all we txtrs, Tweeters and Facebookers know, that it means Laugh Out Loud.

Within moments of the revelation the interweb was alive with alternative Cameron txt talk:

OMG: Oh My Gideon

IMHO: Is My Horse Outside

ROTFL: Rupert’s On The Fone Listening

PMSL: Prime Minister Sends Love

BTW: Bash Tom Watson

MILF: Murdoch I’d Like to Flog (I’ve cleaned that up)

LMAO: Let’s Meet At Oxford

But it was no laughing matter for Brooks, the one-time editor of the News of the World, The Sun and then the CEO of News International, as the inquiry barrister Robert Jay grilled her for almost five hours today, turning the heat up in the second half of what developed into more of an inquisition.

A makeover for No10?

I thought she stood up to it well considering the pressure she has been under since her world fell apart following the Hackgate scandal that still threatens to engulf her.

The previous day, Jay hardly laid a glove on Brooks’ old sidekick Andy Coulson, as all parties had to skirt around any issues that might  mention the on-going investigations into the conduct of Coulson.

But football writer Matt Driscoll came back to haunt him. Coulson painted a careful middle-of-the-road picture of his experiences with News International, while he was editor of the News of the World and then as the Prime Minister’s media adviser at No10.

The only time he hit rocky ground was when the forensic Jay brought up the Driscoll case, with the employment tribunal’s finding in favour of the football writer to the sweet tune of £800,000.

Jay and Coulson locked horns as to whether the then News of the World editor said “I want shot of him”. Coulson  vehemently denied bullying Driscoll out of his job, after he had failed to stand up his tip-off that Arsenal were going to spend a season playing in purple shirts.

The employment tribunal found that Driscoll was the victim of “a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour”.

Those of us who had followed the case before it got to the tribunal knew that Driscoll – son of former sports desk powerhouse Bob Driscoll – suffered a nervous breakdown because of his treatment in what for him had become the Wapping house of torture.

I have an older head than Lord Leveson and am so relieved not to have his head when I hit the pillow each night. As a Leveson Inquiry junkie, I just cannot see how he can possibly piece together all that he is hearing and come up with a please-all conclusion.

It seems to be lasting longer than The Archers, and is producing lots of farmyard smells. And we are still only in Part 1 of the Inquiry.

If I were his Lordship, I would ditch Part 2 and say: “I’ve heard enough, thank you” and then base my report on the hours of evidence to date. There is plenty to prove that the press needs more disciplined self-regulation, backed up by a neutral ombudsman with powers to close erring newspapers if necessary.

The Inquiry has gone off on all sorts of tangents and is now in danger of becoming mired in a political mudheap. Lord Leveson should look to get it closed as soon as possible and concentrate on writing a report that threatens to be longer than War and Peace.

For the rest of Fleet Street, the clear message for tomorrow’s papers is LOL – Lead On Leveson.

THIS OLD HACK WAS reduced to tears this week when giving the eulogy for Terry Spinks, the Golden Boy who was a friend going back, gulp, 60 years. We were schoolboys in the days when we used to meet on the doorstep of our mutual hero Sammy “Smiler” McCarthy, the British featherweight champion, who later became Terry’s manager and best mate.

Nearly every old champion you can think of was there, and we all walked the mile from the church to the cemetery behind the cortege pulled by two horses, and following a phalanx of young tracksuited boxing hopefuls from the West Ham club with which Terry won his Olympic title in 1956.

Terry Spinks, Norman Giller's old mate, in action in the ring

It was bucketing down, which somehow made the journey to Terry’s final resting place all the more poignant. He was buried wearing his 1956 Olympic blazer, and with a 2012 badge in his lapel. He was worth this old git’s tears.

The talk among the flat-nose cognoscenti was head-shaking disbelief over the planned Haye-Chisora heavyweight showdown. The old Blond Bomber Billy Walker said: “What would Henry Cooper make of it all? He always treated boxing with respect.”

I have a tribute memoir coming out on Henry next month, A Hero for All Time, and there is a chapter on how even he turned on the British Boxing Board of Control when, on political grounds, they blocked his planned world title fight with disputed champion Jimmy Ellis.

Henry surrendered his British and Empire titles in protest, and promoter Jack Solomons was all set to go outside the Board’s jurisdiction and stage the fight in Dublin. Then Henry damaged his cartilage and the contest was cancelled. The difference was that even in these low moments. ‘Aitch behaved with dignity, and never in his life trashed an opponent or insulted anybody.

Terry Spinks was also always well-mannered and respectful of his opponents. I wore a multi-coloured tie to his funeral that Terry gave me years ago when I said how much I liked it. He took it off and insisted I have it. That was typical of his generosity. He would have given a tramp his last shilling.

It took me two hours to drive across London, and the roads leading to Stratford, where the school athletes were testing the Olympic facilities, were blocked solid. I forecast gridlock in July.

To think the Games are being staged right at the heart of what was Terry’s manor. If anybody deserved to be part of the ceremony it was the East End idol. Rest easy, Golden Boy.

DAVID EMERY IS AN exceptional sports journalist who as a publisher goes where others fear to tread. He is expert at spotting openings missed by those steered purely by profit motives, and I hope his latest baby – The Cricket Paper – has Bradmanesque success.

I just wish he was running Express Newspapers, where he was once a powerful and productive force. He could certainly show Desmond a thing or three about selecting front page leads, and he would not try to run the show with a skeleton staff. Emery paper can be used for sanding down hard and rough surfaces. He might smooth out some of the rough things happening at the Express group.

• Read Norman Giller’s previous columns for the SJA website by clicking here

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities
  

Former England cricket captain Alec Stewart, flanked by SJA deputy chairman and Sunday Mirror sports editor David Walker (left) and SJA chairman Barry Newcombe, previews the coming Test cricket summer at the latest SJA Ladbrokes Lunch in Fleet Street. Photographs by Andrew Redington/Getty Images

IAN COLE reports from the latest SJA Ladbrokes Lunch, where England’s most capped cricketer Alec Stewart provided his insight into the challenges of the coming Test summer

Alec Stewart, one of Andrew Strauss’s predecessors as England cricket captain, sees the current skipper’s lack of runs as still being some way short of being a crisis for the Test team.

Despite leading England to the No1 position in world cricket, Strauss has not scored a Test century since the opening Ashes clash in Brisbane 18 months ago. And his return to county cricket with Middlesex has produced a string of low scores – not exactly the confidence-builder Strauss was hoping for ahead of next week’s first Test against West Indies at Lord’s.

Even as Stewart, England’s most capped Test cricketer, was digesting his sausage and mash at the latest SJA Ladbrokes Lunch in Fleet Street, news filtered through that Strauss had been dismissed for 2 in Middlesex’s first innings against Notts at Trent Bridge.

“Strauss will be fully aware of the need to score a hundred to prove his worth to the team,” said Stewart. “But he will also know, deep inside, that he is a good player. If you’ve got anything about you, it will show at times when you are struggling.

“I don’t have any issues with England’s batting – even though Strauss has had a poor 12 months. It’s the best batting line-up in the world. Alastair Cook had similar form problems before the Ashes tour. But Cook, who may be quiet but is much tougher than he looks, believed in himself and produced a career-saving innings against Pakistan to secure his tour place.”

Alec Stewart: impressed with England's prospects this summer

If England’s batting makes Stewart purr, the same can be said of the bowling. “I reckon we have the best and the third best bowling attacks in the world.

“By that I mean we have a first choice attack of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann that is No1. I’d put South Africa at No2, and then England’s second string – Steven Finn, Chris Tremlett, Graham Onions and Monty Panesar – at No3.”

Stewart, who won 133 caps, does not foresee too many problems for England in the forthcoming West Indies series. “They have shown recent signs of improvement but these are difficult times for West Indies cricket. The Board are not running the game as well as they might and they are pretty skint, I believe. They are a long way from Clive Lloyd’s side – possibly the best Test team ever.”

Inevitably, Stewart was keen to talk from a Surrey perspective and was pleased to see Kevin Pietersen making a rare appearance for the county. “I was happy to see KP score a rapid hundred in the IPL last week. But what would delight me even more would be a five-hour century against West Indies at Lord’s.”

Stewart also saw parallels between his own career as a batsman-wicketkeeper and that of England regular Matt Prior. “Like me, Matt has come into the team on the strength of his batting rather than his keeping. Matt has the right mental approach and has spent hours working with Bruce French to become the best batsman-keeper in the world.”

For all his achievements as a cricketer, Stewart remains a fan – especially a football fan. He wears the blue of Chelsea. So he is crowing right now and eagerly awaiting the Champions League Final against Bayern in Munich. It’s hard to believe his first-choice sport is football. “Sadly, I just wasn’t good enough. I could kick people though.

“But how could I regret going into cricket and all the things I achieved for Surrey and England? Of course not.”

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities, including these headline-making lunches
  

Lord Coe, the chairman of London 2012, insists that the Torch relay will be a rich seam of material for journalists.

“I don’t think you are going to struggle to find some pretty extraordinary stories out there,” Coe said yesterday. “I know because I have seen the citations of the torchbearers.”

Carrying a torch for London: the Greek ceremonials at Olympia

After an early morning run,  Coe was in relaxed mood at a media briefing on the grassy slopes of the Olympic stadium. He recalled his own first visit to Olympia in 1975, just after competing at the European junior championships in Athens. He’d just boarded a train and “played the tourist”.

In previous years, the lighting of the Olympic flame has received little attention from the British media. What a contrast with the past few days.

Just to reach the village of Olympia is a marathon itself, a five-hour journey. Once arrived, though, all seemed to relish the atmosphere of the oldest Olympic stadium in the world. Even the Fleet Street tabloids were here, the combination of a Greek swimmer, Spiros Gianniotis, Liverpool-born and a one-time patron at Anfield, and 19-year-old Alex Loukas from East Ham as the first two torch bearers was too good to miss.

Loukas was one of the group who went to Singapore with the London bid team in 2005. He is of Greek heritage, so there was a pleasing symmetry to the beginning of the run. He even got to meet Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, and ex-King Constantine of Greece.

Coe was blown away by the ritual of the lighting, an ethereal ceremony performed by “High Priestess” Ino Menegaki, in reality a classical actress in Greece. He wasn’t alone.

The bowl carrying the “sacred” flame was snuffed out by a gust. Estiada priestess Nefeli Mastradi was forced to double back to the temple to get a replacement flame, the incident receiving great play from the various broadcasters present.

For the most part though, the understated ritual here was in stark contrast to the strident and crass “2012 hours to go ceremony” we saw at Stratford last weekend. Rogge spoke of the “final countdown to London”.

Rogge said, “The energy that passes from the sun to the Olympic flame will light a torch that will travel from this birthplace of the ancient Games to the country that invented modern sport and the spirit of fair play.”

In such surroundings as Olympia, it is hard to be cynical. The kids of the village turned out in force to see the rehearsals – beats schoolwork any day. The real thing was restricted to VIPs, and a strict limitation on photographers, apparently to ensure that the television pictures were as clear as could be.

The media centre had old world charm and even free wi-fi which for the most part seemed to work. The Hellenic Olympic Committee press officers were helpful and speedy in offering answers to specific questions.

The 2012 flame spent its first night in Crete before returning to the Greek mainland. Ben Ainslie will the first to run with the flame when it leaves RNAS Culdrose in just over a week’s time.

• JOIN THE SJA and benefit from a recognised press card, priority entry to key events and significant discounts and members offers on a range of activities