Just another Saturday

What do football journalists do on a day like today? Well, it goes something like this...

It’s Saturday. Let me give you some idea about how life works for a football journalist on a day like this.

We’re talking Premier League here. The working experience for those covering the leagues below can vary wildly.

The first point is that, like with away supporters, there can be a fair amount of travel involved. That can be a grind or fun, depending on the journey. Sometimes, if your profile is high enough, you get recognised. This can be a mixed blessing.

On my way to the Manchester United-Crystal Palace FA Cup final seven years ago, a group of Mancs got on the tube at West Hamstead station. One of them recognised me. They immediately launched into “You Scouse bastard!” They all pointed at me. For the next five stops they ran through the sensible end of their anti-Liverpool songbook with the highlight being Tavern In The Town (“We’ll hang Dalglish from the biggest f****** tree…).

It was a bit uncomfortable but largely good natured. Most trips are less eventful. The hostility of social media is rarely replicated in person.

At the stadium, you pick up your credential, a programme and a team sheet and hang around the press room. I preferred getting there close to kick off. Others like to arrive early and gossip with fellow journalists, club staff and ex-players. Some places are commodious. At Arsenal and Tottenham the press lounges are spacious and comfortable. Other grounds are cramped and basic.

There is generally a pre-match meal. Again, this varies from excellent to barely edible. It’s a nice perk but I was always against tweeting pictures of the food. It gives the impression you’re on a jolly but this is not corporate entertainment. It is work, believe it or not.

Press boxes also vary enormously. Some newer stadiums have plenty of space and separate desks. The older ones are so cramped that laptops can barely fit on the shelf in front of you. I’ll miss Goodison but I won’t miss the impact that the tight seating had on my ageing knee the last time I was there. Evertonians will be pleased to know I was in pain for a month.

Best seat in the house? View from the press box at Selhurst Park.

There are small monitors in front of you that show the game live. This helps massively because you get to see replays. 

Different publications have different demands. These days, though, most require you to file copy on the final whistle or as close to it as possible for use online. This means you have to write while the game is still going on. In second halves, especially, you can spend more time writing than watching the game. The crowd noise guides you when to look up.

Still, the type of newspaper you’re representing determines how the day goes.

For Sunday papers, whose first-edition deadlines tend to be 6.30pm, you file a piece just after the game finishes. There’s no dallying or taking time to mull over the events of the afternoon. If you don’t hit the send button asap you’ll have an angry editor on the phone shouting at you (some people do their reports as a ‘runner,’ sending chunks throughout the game for a sub-editor to jigsaw together). Then you update after the managers’ press conference with quotes for the second edition, which you need to get over to the office ideally by 7pm.

It usually takes managers about 20-30 minutes to get to the written press. They do the TV and radio rounds first before speaking to the writers. These can be bland affairs but, after a controversial game or a bad beating, they can get quite spiky. Tabloid journalists usually lead the questioning.

After the general press conference finishes, managers do a separate chat with the daily papers – those whose match reports will be published in Monday’s edition. These often take place in corridors and side rooms as the writers look for something fresh to serve up a day and a half after the game finished. Managers are conscious of this and can take a very different spin to the one they presented at the general conference when cameras are running.

During Jose Mourinho’s second spell at Chelsea, he inherited a declining Fernando Torres and was not impressed. Torres was a favourite of Roman Abramovich and the Portuguese was under pressure to play the forward.

After a poor game at, if I remember rightly, Stoke, Mourinho was asked about the Spaniard’s display. His answer, for general consumption, was something like, “he’s working hard, the goals will come.” That appeared in the Sunday newspapers and on TV.

For the Mondays, on the understanding he would not be quoted directly, the Chelsea manager took another line. “He’s gone. He’s s***. I’d get rid of him tomorrow but I can’t.”

So, when the negative stories about Torres appeared on Monday morning, I got to field a bunch of phone calls and emails from Chelsea fans accusing the writer of being a liar. They all took the same approach. “Here’s what Mourinho said. It’s the opposite of what you wrote. Why do you make things up?”

Rafa Benitez’s favourite statement is “football is a lie.” He’s right. But not in the way most people think.

When the managers’ press conferences are over, there’s the opportunity to talk to the players as they leave. This is called the mixed zone. Some want to chat, some don’t. Often a player will be delegated to answer some questions. All this normally takes an hour or more after the final whistle to be completed.

Usually, a couple of people volunteer to transcribe the quotes – everyone records them – and email them round. The different factions guard their territories ferociously. The content to be used on Monday morning is embargoed until late Sunday night and woe betide any inexperienced writer who uses them before. The journalism world is riven with resentments and jealousies.

Tabloid writers (‘Scufflers,’ so called because they scuffle for stories) have contempt for some of their broadsheet colleagues who regard chasing quotes as an indignity.

My view? I always admire the story-getters, even if their prose is inelegant. Anyone can write. Not everyone can tell you something you don’t know.

And a last thing. If you write something negative about someone in the game – a manager, a player, an executive – it’s more than likely you’ll bump into them at a match. Most of them are not shy. They let you know how they feel. It’s not so simple as slaughtering someone in print and forgetting about it. You know you will have to face them. Football people have big egos and long memories.

These are broad brush strokes but hopefully give some idea how a Saturday looks for the written media. Producing good match reports is an art. Very few people are good at it and it’s tougher than it looks.

But it’s better than real work.

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