Andy Potts
Bio
Community focused sports fan from Northeast England. Tends to root for the little guy. Look out for Talking Northeast, my new project coming soon.
Stories (95/0)
Pints & Parkruns: Hartlepool
Not many people think of Hartlepool as a beautiful beach. When the town makes an impression beyond its boundaries, it tends to be about a perpetually struggling football team (not even Brian Clough managed to win anything here). Or an infamous monkey, hanged as a French spy in the Napoleonic Wars. Even that beach come with a tale attached, involving an intrepid paddler and a life insurance scam. For Seaton Carew, read Seaton Canoe.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Longevity
Life during wartime
Two years ago, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. In my usual job as a sports reporter, I don’t normally deal with major global events. Many people better qualified than me have written much about this war. However, a couple of months after the start of the invasion, I spoke to Olexander Peresunko, a hockey player from Ukraine, while he was representing his country at a World Championship Division IB tournament in Poland.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Unbalanced
Pints & Parkruns: Severn Bridge
This was a first for me: a parkrun that crosses a national boundary. OK, so the UN might not regard the Bristol Channel as an international frontier, and nobody was going to be checking my passport along the way (just as well, since the queue would scupper all hope of a fast time). But, for people on both sides of the Anglo-Welsh border, this is very definitely a dividing line between two distinct and proud nations. And never more so than during the Six Nations rugby.
By Andy Potts3 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Cotsford Fields
‘Undulating’ is one of the most deceptive words in a runner’s vocabulary. Almost nobody wants to admit to a hill on a route, yet hardly anybody wants to proclaim a course flatter than the proverbial pancake. As a result, parkrun tourists can face mountainous ‘undulations’ one week, before trotting along a flat path the next, wondering where the slopes will start.
By Andy Potts4 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Cardiff
There’s no getting away from it: Cardiff is a serious sporting city. On the day I pitched up at the parkrun I was earmarked to work at ice hockey’s Continental Cup final. Had I not been committed there, I could have spent my day watching Championship football (Cardiff City 0 Leeds 3), international netball (Wales 48 Uganda 59), European Champions Cup rugby (Cardiff 15 Harlequins 54) or the World Wheelchair Fencing Championship.
By Andy Potts4 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Sedgefield
When I was a kid, Hardwick Park meant fishing nets and leeches in the pond. Back then, it had seen better days – but they were in the 18th century, so it wasn’t immediately clear what potential the place could have. A decade of restoration, at a cost of £4.1 million transformed the place and, after it reopened in 2010, parkrun got going within a couple of years.
By Andy Potts5 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Albert Park, Middlesbrough
Think Brian Clough, think Nottingham? Not round here. The famously outspoken football genius was a Middlesbrough boy and proud of it. He never managed at Ayresome Park, something of a lingering regret for Boro fans of a certain vintage. But he began his prolific playing career with his hometown club (albeit via a brief stint at nearby Billingham Synthonia), rattling in goals with metronomic regularity before moving to Sunderland and continuing in the same vein, scoring 251 times in 274 games before a career-ending injury cut him down in his prime.
By Andy Potts5 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Conyngham Hall, Knaresborough
Harrogate gets the headlines, but those in the know come to Knaresborough. It’s an odd little throwback of a place, perched on a precipitous gorge astride the River Nidd. Come by train – it’s on the Leeds-Harrogate-York line – and you’ll arrive at a station that could feature in a period drama. Approach in the right direction and you’ll cross the crenelated viaduct that features in almost every photo of the town.
By Andy Potts7 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Riverside, Chester-le-Street
This wasn’t the plan. However, with storm Ciaran prompting me to look up the designs for Noah’s Ark, it didn’t feel like a weekend for a course with grass or trails. Riverside, I hoped, would be relatively unaffected. Although this Chester-le-Street event once had an old route that cut across the grass, the last time I ran here it was all on paths.
By Andy Potts7 months ago in Longevity
Pints & Parkruns: Queen's Park, Glasgow
Before Glasgow’s Queen’s parkrun, everyone is invited to drop into the nearby church for coffee and a biscuit afterwards. Eyes are irresistibly drawn to the rather elegant late Victorian spire of Queen’s Park Baptist Church on Balvicar Street. What they don’t mention is that each of the three laps ahead involves a climb that brings you close to the top of that 200ft spire. That’s why this is Scotland’s steepest parkrun, with a total elevation gain of 113m, according to Strava.
By Andy Potts9 months ago in Longevity