{"id":657367,"date":"2025-12-27T07:15:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T07:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657367\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T07:15:38","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T07:15:38","slug":"the-tribunes-best-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657367\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tribune\u2019s best of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s been a big year for The Tribune. Over the last 12 months we\u2019ve added a fourth staff member and published some of our biggest investigations ever. We thought we\u2019d take the opportunity of the \u201cChrimbo Limbo\u201d to look back at some of our most memorable stories of 2025. Below, each of our four writers picks their top three stories of the year. They include everything from major investigations to hard-hitting interviews and quirky human interest pieces. Have a read of ours and let us know what your favourite was in the comments.<\/p>\n

Dan Hayes<\/strong><\/p>\n

A London lawyer bought hundreds of Sheffield freeholds. Then the \u2018very aggressive\u2019 letters arrived<\/a>. The Tribune\u2019s story of the year is undoubtedly Andrew Milne, the London solicitor who has been busy buying hundreds of freeholds and then demanding tens of thousands of pounds from homeowners in return. It\u2019s the story which has had the biggest impact of any we\u2019ve done by far, being picked up by national media including Private Eye and the BBC. When it first came to our attention I don’t think any of us knew that it would take off the way it did, but thanks to heroic reporting (mainly by my colleague Daniel Timms but eventually including Mill Media reporters across four cities), we finally landed the big fish that we had been looking for. What will happen next in the saga? Keep reading The Tribune next year to find out.<\/p>\n

\"\"Original illustration for The Tribune by Jake Greenhalgh.<\/p>\n

Who killed the Sheffield Ski Village?<\/a> Every city has one great mystery; a foundational question that becomes part of its mythology. In Sheffield, that mystery is: who started the Ski Village fire? Eyebrows were raised when the ski village first arrived in the city, but the attraction turned out to be remarkably successful. That was, until, the early hours of Sunday, 29th April 2012, when the whole place went up in fiery oblivion. Ever since there have been rumours about who started the fire and why. However, in June this year, Victoria tried to finally solve that mystery, tracking down the Ski Village\u2019s former owner Kevin Pullan and asking him direct: did you burn it down to claim the insurance money?<\/p>\n

Parrot Paradise: the boom in Sheffield\u2019s parakeet population<\/a>. One of the great privileges of commissioning stories from Sheffield freelancers is the chance to bring regular pieces by David Bocking to our ever-appreciative audience. So rooted in Sheffield is David (or \u201cBod\u201d, as Jarvis Cocker used to call him in the 1980s \u2014 yes, really<\/a>) that he sometimes seems to be hewn from the very landscape itself. As such, there is almost nothing he doesn’t know about the Steel City. This includes, we found out in March this year, the strange story of how the city came to have a population of parrots. Do they really come from Mick Jagger\u2019s aviary, as some people suggest?<\/p>\n

\"\"A ring-necked parakeet. Photo: Jayanth Muppaneni on Unsplash.Daniel Timms\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rise and Fall of the Dorothy Pax<\/a>. Dan\u2019s piece on the Dorothy Pax was a fitting tribute to one of the city\u2019s most loved venues, which closed down this year. He managed to capture the love people have for the place, and how hard it was for owner Richard Henderson that his lifelong dream of running a venue had come to an end. There were some great pictures of Richard and the bands that played the Pax, and one of the most poignant endings on any of our pieces this year. \u201cJust as I\u2019m about to leave, a man walks into the Dorothy Pax with his dog. \u2018Sorry, we\u2019re closed,\u2019 says Henderson. \u2018Closed altogether?\u2019 asks the man. Henderson sighs. \u2018Yeah, closed altogether.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Richard Henderson outside the Dorothy Pax. Photo: Dan Hayes\/The Tribune.<\/p>\n

The Secret Bus Driver<\/a>. Sometimes a story just really captures the imagination of our readers. The secret bus driver was that kind of story. Promising to explain \u201cwhy your bus is always late\u201d it went deep into how bus timetables actually work and the \u2014 often not easy \u2014 experience of being a bus driver. Stress, and customers who are sometimes abusive or jump in the door as it\u2019s closing. \u201cBus drivers can\u2019t read your thoughts, although some of you behave as though you think we can. And poking your arm out at the last minute and then shooting us an incredulous look doesn\u2019t cut it, sorry.\u201d Other highlights: \u201cIf your bank card declines it isn\u2019t ‘a problem with my machine’ and you can\u2019t ‘just get on anyway’, and using the emergency button on the outside of the bus will definitely get you thrown off. No questions asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Holmes has bought a truly massive Union Jack. Will he be able to hang it up?<\/a> This piece (one of Mollie\u2019s first for us) was on the one hand an utterly ludicrous story about a man looking to hang up a 100ft wide Union Jack on the side of a prominent building in Chesterfield, and on the other a quite profound look into the strong emotions prompted this summer by \u201cOperation Raise the Colours\u201d, that took place across England this summer. It was also a brilliant example of a journalist bravely confronting someone with their own words (despite being sat in their Land Rover Defender with them at the time). When Mollie asked why Holmes had shared a post saying \u201cAll mosques should be closed in the UK\u201d he responded: \u201cI don\u2019t think I posted that. Did I? I did? I maybe did. I did. I maybe did a repost. Yeah, well, for you to bring that up, I think we can see the way you\u2019re gonna want to slant this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Original illustration for The Tribune by Jake Greenhalgh.Victoria Munro\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last lockkeeper<\/a>. I loved Dan\u2019s profile of Dave Walker, one of the last remaining residential lockkeepers in the country. He\u2019s been responsible for the stretch of canal from Victoria Quays to the River Don for almost 40 years but, when he does finally retire, the Canal and River Trust have made it clear they won\u2019t be looking for a replacement, instead relying on a team of volunteers. It\u2019s a fascinating look into an unusual way of life most people are likely unfamiliar with, and a testament to Dan\u2019s talent as an interviewer and photographer.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dave Walker, Sheffield’s last lockkeeper. Photo: Dan Hayes\/The Tribune.<\/p>\n

The \u2018harmful pseudo-science\u2019 infecting Sheffield\u2019s family courts<\/a>. I was also hugely impressed \u2014 albeit pretty depressed \u2014 by this harrowing story from Jessica Bradley, who spoke to local mothers who had experienced a \u201charmful pseudo-science\u201d being leveraged against them during custody battles. American child psychologist Richard Gardner coined \u201cParental Alienation Syndrome\u201d in 1987, arguing that when a child is \u201cpreoccupied with deprecation and criticism\u201d of one parent, it was a sign they had been \u201cbrainwashed\u201d by the other \u2014 including in cases where a child alleged they had been sexually abused. Though Gardner\u2019s theory has been widely discredited in the decades since, Jessica spoke to five mothers who say \u201cparental alienation\u201d was used against them in Sheffield\u2019s family court, in order to argue their ex-partners should have access to children they allegedly abused.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rednote, rankings, and rumoured riches: The real lives of Sheffield\u2019s Chinese Students<\/a>. This piece from our intern Misty Lamb \u2014 who also wrote one of Mollie\u2019s favourites below \u2014 is a great example of why we love working with a wide range of freelance writers and journalists, in addition to our full-time team. (If you have a story you\u2019d like to pitch next year, please email your idea to editor@sheffieldtribune.co.uk<\/a>.) Getting this kind of insight into the lives of the University of Sheffield\u2019s Chinese international students would have been impossible for a writer that couldn\u2019t speak Mandarin and Misty did a great job drawing the reader into their world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Original illustration for The Tribune by Jake Greenhalgh.Mollie Simpson<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Sheffield company wants to buy your face for \u00a340. Should you sell?<\/a> This piece was a fascinating inside look at a company given almost \u00a3350,000 in government funding to set up shop in Sheffield, which offers willing participants \u00a340 in return for the company taking an incredibly detailed photo of your face to turn into hyper-realistic digital models. The models are used for everything from providing skin tones for makeup developers to creating characters in video games. If you\u2019re keen to see an unbelievably detailed photo of your own face and maybe even see yourself showing up in the next generation of video game characters, it might be for you. But should you sell your own face for \u00a340? Before you decide, note that this piece also contains the alarming detail that company founder James Busby’s stated policy of people\u2019s images never being used to generate any sexually explicit content is not completely watertight. \u201cIf I say this, it\u2019s gonna sound bad, but you cannot guarantee that with anything,\u201d Busby admitted. Personally, I\u2019ll be avoiding it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Original illustration for The Tribune by Jake Greenhalgh.<\/p>\n

After Partygate, Kate Josephs pledged to \u2018restore trust\u2019. Three years on, how\u2019s it going?<\/a> I was moved by this great profile of council chief executive Kate Josephs. We\u2019ve all read the explosive Telegraph story that thrust Josephs into the spotlight, but this was my first time reading about how Josephs felt as an online mob rallied to the cause of destroying her for marking her final day as director-general of the very taskforce that designed lockdown laws by throwing a \u201cboozy\u201d leaving party. It\u2019s always a difficult task to cover the city\u2019s leading decision makers, but I thought Victoria did a great job of humanising Josephs while also \u2013 as every journalist should when writing about major figures \u2013 not letting her off the hook.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blue Wednesday: How Owls fans are coping with a club in crisis<\/a>. What do you do when your football club is in such dire financial straits that employees haven’t been paid on time for five out of the last seven months, leading to the club being placed under a transfer embargo and possibly having a points deduction imposed? Do you boycott: refusing to watch the team play to starve the club\u2019s ownership of an income stream in the hopes of forcing the owner to exit, or do you remain loyal? Dan examined the difficult choices Sheffield Wednesday fans were making at the height of the club\u2019s woes, and how these led to divisions in the fanbase, a loss of matchday rituals and, according to one pub landlady, a 50% reduction in matchday takings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Will Smith at The Riverside pub in Hillsborough. Photo: Dan Hayes\/The Tribune.<\/p>\n

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