About
About the site
Southern Fried was setup in a blog format in August 2008, before subsequently evolving into a news website. It aims to provide up-to-date stories and match reports for everything to do with Munster and Irish hockey, as well as interviews with the game’s movers and shakers and features on the big questions within the sport.
The blog would never have got off the ground without the inspiration provided by Stephen Findlater, the creator of Ireland’s first – and best – hockey blog, The Hook. Stephen’s encouragement, help, patience and advice were crucial factors in getting Southern Fried set up. A doff of the cap to you, sir.
Many other hardy souls help me keep my sanity and ensure the site isn’t always a one-man show; for a start, Eoin Tyrrell, Adrian Boehm, Rachel McSharry and Deryck Vincent are among those whose photography skills have helped illuminate the side. On the web design side of things, I’ve flown by the seat of my pants since day one, but help from Gillian McAuliffe of the Botanic club – who designed the spiffing logo – and Niamh Hutton has helped the site look the way it does today.
Southern Fried is also hugely indebted to the fine people in the images department of the Irish Examiner for access to their archives, and the paper’s sports editor Tony Leen for giving me a shot at being a sportswriter in the first place. All images are used with permission, and you don’t need me to remind you that stealing them and using them elsewhere is more trouble than it’s worth.
While readers are encouraged to add their thoughts and debate any issue within Munster hockey via the comment facility, Southern Fried has no tolerance for anything libellous or defamatory, and comments are therefore vetted and moderated before being posted on the blog. So if you want your voice heard, don’t get personal, yeah? And preferably tell us who you are as well; faceless opinions are like Girls Aloud – fun to indulge, but nobody really takes them seriously.
Praise for Southern Fried
“It’s timely at the start of a season to alert unsuspecting hockey fans to two interesting blogs that have sprung up over the last year or so. The Hook and Southern Fried, overseen by Stephen Findlater and Alan Good respectively, are providing fine new outlets for the sport in Leinster and Munster. Both sites are informative, and unlike newspapers they can carry unlimited amounts of material. What both blogs also do well is to highlight how poor the official provincial outlets are.”
Johnny Watterson, Irish Times
“reminiscent of a young Tom Humphries”
Damien Lane, news editor, The Sun
“This is a great e-zine that I enjoy reading. Thanks for taking the initiative to do it, and keep it up!”
Paul Varian, president, Sport British Columbia and former IHA chief executive
About the author
Alan Good, 23 years young, took up hockey after his merciless parents sent him to a posh primary school in Cork city in the early 1990s. He played the game with all the gusto, guile and enthusiasm of a moose with tourette’s for six years, but was ultimately rubbish, and started playing rugby and soccer instead.
When he discovered he wasn’t much good at those either, he took the vengeful step of doing what his mother always told him to when he felt inferior to the popular kids, and has been “using his words” since 2002.
During five years as a freelance journalist covering everything from crime, health and politics to sport, arts and travel, he had his work published in titles such as the Irish Examiner, Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday Tribune, Evening Echo, Hot Press and The Sun.
He is currently dividing his time between his job as a sports writer and sub-editor with the Irish Examiner and completing a BA in economics at UCC, where he is a former editor of the college newspaper, the UCC Express, and a former deputy auditor of the UCC Journalism Society. His first book, a history of Sunday’s Well Boating and Tennis Club, co-authored with Kieran McCarthy, is to be published in October 2009.
His greatest claims to fame are the Journalist of the Year (National Press) award he won at the Student Media Awards in 2008, interviewing Ed Harris and owning one of Cork’s biggest – and most pointless – DVD collections.
Last season, he dipped his toes back into the playing side of things with UCC after not touching a stick for 10 years, and is the club’s PRO for 2009/10.
He hopes that suffering from back problems more commonly associated with arthritic pensioners won’t stop him carving out a sparkling career with the club’s third XI in the pressure-cooker environment of, erm, Division Three.
