By Touchline
November 15 2010

As we all know Mark Smith, aka Smithy, has moved on from Kingston Park and is now the rugby reporter for The Journal/Chronicle. His replacement as Media Manager for the Falcons is Stewart McCullough.

Stewart is  24, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria and is a big rugby man. His background from an early age was rugby league and he played the game from the age of 10. He was introduced to rugby union when he started senior school and went on to play for his county, Cumbria, at under 13 level. In the meantime he played rugby league and at under 15 level, represented the North of England.

Stewart went to university at University of Central Lancashire, Preston and graduated with a degree in English Literature/Education Studies in 2008. He then went into the media for a year prior to doing a postgraduate journalism course and did loads of work experience for free at places like the Carlisle News & Star and the Northwest Evening Mail.

He graduated from his postgraduate course in newspaper journalism this year. During the course  he was Deputy Sports Editor of the student newspaper and was chief reporter on lastackle.com. He also did work experience on the Guardian sports desk in London during the FIFA World Cup and two months later came to Newcastle Falcons to do an internship, covering Smithy while he was in India. At the end of October he was appointed Media Manager permanently.

Clearly Stewart has a firm basis in rugby of both codes and I’m sure we all wish him well at Kingston Park and look forward to reading his articles and hoping he will also contribute to this site occasionally as Smithy did.