A Fond Farewell

“When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte (rather fitting).

As the title indicates, regrettably, this post marks the end of Polly's Pause for Sport. After a very enjoyable 18 months I feel as though the blog has run its course and, with new posts being almost non-existent of late and as other obligations currently consume much of my time, now seems like a logical time to bring the curtain down on this little project.

I do so somewhat reluctantly as I have thoroughly enjoyed running the blog and writing the posts. The whole experience has proven to be both beneficial and entertaining. It allowed me to develop my writing style, express my opinions on some of the more pressing issues within the sporting world and to interact with many other great writers and bloggers. But for now, although I won't rule out having the sudden urge to sporadically write a new post from time-to-time in the future, there will be no more pauses for sport.

Between having to finish my Masters dissertation and getting a new job, the time and focus is no longer there for me to continue running the blog with anything like the regularity and consistency that I would like. Thankfully there are many far better blogs than this which are thriving and growing all the time, all of which I intend to continue to read and recommend.

Having the blog placed on the Guardian's list of the Top 100 Football Blogs for 2011 was an unexpected but very proud moment. As too has been the large amount of followers I have somehow amassed on Twitter as a result of my blog updates. The result of both these things saw viewer numbers soar in 2011 to some quite humbling figures at times. Moreover, the largely positive and complementary feedback and comments received from people through Twitter has been one of the most enjoyable parts of running the site. I have come to know many of the writers and editors of other sports blogs and websites well, contributing on several of them, and that has possibly been the best part of creating this blog and the Twitter account which followed on from it.

Aside from the criticism from Manchester City fans that seems to follow me wherever I write, I would like to think the blog has been well received. The main reason for writing this farewell post is to offer out some thanks for everyone who made it as worthwhile as it turned out to be.

Firstly, and most importantly, thank you to the tens of thousands of people who have, apparently, visited the site. I never envisaged more than twenty of my friends and family reading my words so to see the number of hits the blog generated was as surprising as it was gratifying. Secondly, thank you to everyone on Facebook and Twitter for putting up my incessant plugging of new posts – every retweet and plug was genuinely appreciated. Thirdly, thank you to everyone who took their time to comment on the pieces on the site, your feedback and opinions were greatly welcomed. And finally, thanks to the various guest writers for the pieces you have submitted. I would like to thank individuals by name but there have simply been too many over the last year and a half to mention.

Dry your eyes, loyal followers, and take comfort in these wise words:

“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.”

- Joseph Campbell.

So quite possibly for the last time; thoughts, comments and opinions please...