When the managing director of the Daily and Sunday Sport says that he wants “no more knickers on the front page”, it is not obvious that the goal is to move the salacious tabloid up market. But the title once known for “World War II bomber found on moon”, “Hitler was a woman” and other such truth-stretching headlines is trying to win back readers lost because the paper went too far.

Times have changed at the Sport, which began as a Sunday title 20 years ago. The previous owners, David Sullivan and the Gold brothers, all of whom made their living from adult retail and entertainment, sold out in the summer. The buyer was the stock market listed Interactive World, now Sport Media Group, in a deal worth £50 million.

Andrew Fickling, the managing director, wants to restore lost sales by emphasising glamour, instead of what was essentially soft pornography. “We think there is an opportunity to take readers from the Star and The Sun, as those papers feminise.”

The idea is to ensure that the paper “is acceptable in female company,” according to Mr Fickling. Wednesday’s splash “Wife Chops Off Hubby’s Nads” may not be public service journalism, but is not outrageous either. Pictures of scantily clad woman on the front remain de rigueur, but there are no longer meant to be “celebrities touching their toes”.

Concerns about the Sport’s content marginalised the title. In its lunar bomber heyday, the paper sold more than 600,000 on a Sunday. In the mid1990s, as daily editions were gradually introduced, that figure dropped to 350,000; 18 months ago that was 160,000 and now - after 18 sordid months – sales are around 105,000 during the week, 65,000 on Saturday and 90,000 to 100,000 on a Sunday. Change was clearly necessary.

What went wrong? A marketing campaign, with a picture of a 10p on the front, accompanied by the statement “10p cheaper than some newspapers”, when the title cost more than The Sun and the Daily Mirror, was, in Mr Fickling’s view, “not helpful”. But the real issue was with Mr Sullivan and the paper’s charismatic former editor-in-chief Tony Livesey, who now works for the BBC in the North West.

Both were running out of ideas – Mr Fickling says Mr Livesey “was brilliant, but was putting his energy increasingly into a media career” and Mr Sullivan was finding that the Sportwas taking up a lot of time for a relatively modest profit contribution. Now a new editor-in-chief is being sought, although James Brown, who once edited Loaded, is acting as a consultant.

Mr Fickling says the paper “never made less than £4 million,” although the accounts show a surplus of just £54,000 in the year to August 2006. Revenues were £30.6 million, down £5 million, but this is not expensive journalism. The Manchester-based title employs 30, with “12 to 13 reporters”. But being public there has to be growth. “All we have to do is start winning back readers who were with us 18 months ago,” Mr Fickling says.

The clean-up means that there are no racy mobile phone advertisers in the first few pages, the paper’s familiar bedrock of profit, in the hope of attracting traditional display advertisers. Efforts to woo key retailers have also begun to succeed, at least with Somerfield, although Tesco and the other big supermarkets are holding fire. “It didn’t help that when they stopped stocking us previously we went after their directors printing addresses and phone numbers, but now, with the change of ownership, companies like Morrisons are willing to talk”.

There are limits though. The Sunday Sport features a “nipple count” on page 2 and much of the content remains pretty basic. The title sees little value in a website, but hopes to charge to send pictures to mobiles. A revealing snap of Britney Spears was bought by 50,000 readers for £3 each.

That is a start, but keeping the City happy and meeting the expectations of men on the building site will be hard work.

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