Category Archives: Features

FWA Live – Manchester

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Gary Neville: There’s an inevitability that one day either Guardiola or Mourinho will be at City

Steve Bates: United fans say the team hasn’t been right for two or three seasons

Andy Dunn: Chelsea are a club without soul

Neil Custis: Chelsea live on the edge…it was like Tiger Woods, when he was a naughty boy he was winning every Major going, now he’s calmed down he can’t hit a golf ball

Ian Ladyman: City have not won a big game against big opposition since April

Peter Reid: The Manchester United players aren’t as good as 10 years ago

By CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

MANCHESTER is used to staging football events that combine craft and controversy and the second FWA L’ive event, sponsored by Barclays, maintained this tradition.

A packed audience at the Ministry for Science and Industry joined in as the good and the great from the Football Writers’ Association and two of Manchester’s legends locked horns about the major issues in the not always beautiful game.

Paul McCarthy, executive general secretary of the FWA, was the question master as Andy Dunn (Sunday Mirror and FWA chairman), Steve Bates (Sunday People), Neil Custis (The Sun), Ian Ladyman (Daily Mail) plus former Manchester United full-back Gary Neville, now a respected Sky Sports analyser and co-commentator, and Peter Reid, who played for and managed Manchester City, got stuck into the Manchester derby, Chelsea, Arsenal and much more.

Paul McCarthy: Manchester United and Manchester City lead the Barclays Premier League but there are still question marks about both teams…

Andy Dunn: What makes it more important for City is that the game [at the Etihad] comes on the back of the Champions League. We all know now Roberto Mancini has to win the Barclays Premier League to stay in his job. Psychologically for them …they have an appalling record in the Champions League and they have to win this game which has become all the more important.

Neil Custis: I find this criticism of Mancini absolutely ridiculous. People are suggesting his job is in danger…this bloke is the best thing to happen to Manchester City since Sheikh Mansour [took over]. You have to remember what this guy’s done. People say ‘because he’s had all that money I could do that job.’ I don’t believe they could. He’s had to manage huge expectations, huge egos, he has given them their first trophy in 35 years, their first title in 50 years, they’re unbeaten in 21 games, unbeaten at home in two years, they’re the only unbeaten club in Britain…I don’t think that’s bad.

Peter Reid: If he’d managed City under Peter Swales he’d have been under more pressure.

Neil Custis: He’s under pressure because of the expectation and he’s handled that pressure brilliantly. Every time he loses…well, he hasn’t lost a game in the Barclays Premier League for so long…every time there’s a slight slip up…Gary will tell you to get it right in the Champions League takes time. You play a different kind of football from the Barclays Premier League. I think you have to learn to play in it to be successful. This year obviously hasn’t been great but United didn’t qualify from a much weaker group last season. The criticism of Mancini is unfair.

Peter Reid: To be fair, United would have struggled in City’s group [Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax]. When you talk about pressure and looking after players it’s highlighted at City because of who they have. When you have a player who’s messing around on the bench and says he’s never going to play for the club again the pressure builds up on you and you have to be careful how you handle that.

Neil Custis: Do you think that Roberto Mancini should lose his job if City finish second in the Barclays Premier League?

Ian Ladyman: In football you set your own standards. Whatever level you play at, you have to be seen to improve and evolve. City haven’t improved because in the summer he didn’t seem to have the same control over players or the same direction. They are still unbeaten but they aren’t as good as last season. The Champions League was a bit of a disaster, it was a difficult group but to make such a mess of it… I think if City find themselves adrift by February or March then rightly or wrongly he might then find himself in a bit of bother.

Gary Neville: After winning the FA Cup and then the league, you can’t think a manager would be under pressure. However, there was a manager at Chelsea who won the FA Cup and Champions League six months ago… In fairness to Sheikh Mansour he has been quite relaxed about Mancini and has given him time. I think he deserves this but there is a suggestion that because of the appointment of Txiki Begiristain [as sporting director] from Barcelona it’s not ridiculous to think that if he doesn’t win the league that he wouldn’t come under pressure but I’m not saying that would be the right thing.

Steve Bates: Part of the problem Mancini has is, he no longer seems to have the ultimate backing of the people above him. You can see that by the transfer business they did in the summer, there were two lists, the one Mancini wanted and the list that he got.

Neil Custis: The people who blocked him from doing that have now been moved aside [Brian Marwood was moved from his role as football administrator to managing director of the academy]. Mancini will now work with Begiristain and chief executive Ferran Soriano. I think if City had moved quicker they’d have had a better chance of getting Robin van Persie.

Gary Neville: There a lot I like about City. They aren’t playing as they did last season but there is an ability within the squad to dig out results. If I was in the United dressing room, what would concern me is that City aren’t at their best but they’re still only three points behind.

Ian Ladyman: What would concern me if I were a City fan is that they have not won a big game against big opposition since April when they beat United at home and went on to win the league. United still manage to do that, they’ve defeated Chelsea, Arsenal…

Steve Bates: I’m not sure if Mancini has the same faith in his players this season. He’s chopped and changed the team, systems have changed, he’s played three at the back, five at the back…

Neil Custis: He changed to three at the back a number of times last season, it’s not like he’s invented it. He’s also perceived as being negative. City played Newcastle in a key game towards the end of last season, he brought off Nasri, put on de Jong and people said he was being negative. He did that to put YaYa Toure nearer the front and he scored the goal.  I think he knows what he’s doing tactically.  I’d like to ask Gary, no matter how good the team is [domestically] does it take time to get used to Champions League football?

Gary Neville: United had two group defeats in the Nineties. I’ve watched every City game in the Champions League and you can’t deny they’ve under-performed. Ajax was a strange game, I thought they were comfortable and suddenly there’s a mad half an hour. I think if United had been in this season’s [City] group they would have struggled. United were knocked out [at the group stage] last season and no one suggested the manager was in trouble.

Neil Custis: I don’t think City want to be perceived as another Chelsea. I think they fear that. They had a lot of stick when they got rid of Mark Hughes who was on course for what they were trying to achieve but it turned out the change was right. If they start chopping and changing they will be seen as another Chelsea but they have long-term plans on and off the park which are very good…if you start chopping the man and the top, they next guy is under immediate pressure because players think ‘he won a title and he’s gone, what has this bloke got to do?’

Steve Bates: How do you equate the fact that last season Mancini was talking to other clubs?

Peter Reid: On the continent it’s a matter of fact that it’s more of a merry-go-round. The British mentality is different.

Ian Ladyman: When people say you ought to go, you’re on a sticky wicket. He probably thought ‘I may be out of work.’ You can say it’s immoral but I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Andy Dunn: Mancini wouldn’t see it as a big deal but it’d be a big deal if players did it.

Paul McCarthy: Robin van Persie spoke to City, why wouldn’t he not want to go to the champions of England?

Neil Custis: He chose United for football reasons, the history of the club. United are a bigger club.

Gary Neville: I think he wanted to play for Manchester United. Samir Nasri chose City not United, whether that was for football reasons I don’t know. Gareth Barry chose City over Liverpool.

Ian Ladyman: The way it was described to me was that City didn’t show van Persie enough love.

Andy Dunn: This isn’t being disrespectful to City but maybe they had to offer him more than United…

Neil Custis: United are always going to have the bigger pull because they are the biggest club in the world. The new signings don’t realise this until they experience it. For that reason United will always have the edge.

Paul McCarthy: United are far from firing on all cylinders…

Steve Bates: United fans would agree and this is not the United side people have been used to. They are leaking goals, not playing with any real conviction especially at the start of matches…they can do it because they have such a massive armoury of players who can dig them out of trouble. I think if they start as they have been on Sunday they’ll be in a tricky situation…you can do this against some of the lesser teams but certainly not against Manchester City. Gary will know more than anyone how highly Sir Alex Ferguson rates a strong defence. This season they are so flaky at the back but they are still top of the league. I speak to United fans and they say the team hasn’t been right for two or three seasons.

Neil Custis: Yet they have as many points as last year. I think there is something in their DNA…no matter what team they put out there, they have a determination and drive to win football matches that other clubs don’t. City are getting there…

Peter Reid: By the way, we’re talking about the problems of United and City but they are first and second in the Barclays Premier League. And the league is massive now. Previoulys Manchester United v Liverpool were bigger games, no disrespect to City…

Gary Neville [smiling]: Basically what you’re saying is City were crap for 15 or 20 years…

Neil Custis: I’ve worked in Manchester for 14 years and the intensity…everything is bigger than ever. I think both sets of fans should grasp this and really drink it in. It’s wonderful time to be here with these two football clubs where they are.

Ian Ladyman: Over the last two years the derby games have been absolutely incredible. Every match is the biggest derby ever.

Andy Dunn: You have a club with virtually unlimited finance and a club that is the biggest commercial powerhouse in world football. That is why, and given the gap between Manchester and the rest of the Barclays Premier League it is more than a derby, it’s a defining game in the league.

Paul McCarthy: Let’s put you all on the spot: who will win and who will be the player of the day:

Ian Ladyman: A draw and Joe Hart.

Gary Neville: I’ll go with United [sounds of mock surprise from audience] and Robin van Persie.

Andy Dunn: For me it’s United and Rooney. Fergie has been needling him a bit to gee him up, he played him him against Cluj when everyone else was rested…Fergie has been nudging him along and I think Sunday is the type of game for him.

Steve Bates: I have serious concerns about the way United are defending, I don’t think you can just turn it off and turn it on. City are a big powerful team physically and they have overpowered United at times recently. If they get a goal ahead United will find it very difficult, I’ll go 2-1 City and Vincent Kompany.

Peter Reid: I think City will win, especially if he plays Tevez and Aguero. I don’t understand rotation, are players better these days? Why rest them?

Neil Custis: I agree, Dzeko has to be left out, playing him from the start just doesn’t work for City. I think City will win 2-0 and the key player will be Vincent Kompany who is currently the best centre-back in the league. How he handles van Persie will be key, not only that, Kompany’s so good from set-pieces, where United are vulnerable, he is so dangerous.

That wrapped up the first-half but plenty more was to come, starting with Chelsea…a topic that brought plenty of reaction from the panel and the audience.

Paul McCarthy: Andy, when you were at the News Of The World you wrote ‘you can buy everything but class…’

Andy Dunn: It’s knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. I think it’s come to the point where [Chelsea] fans need more than 10 trophies in nine years. At United the fans believe in Ferguson and his philosophy. Chelsea had someone in Roberto di Matteo who they idolised as a player…he then won the Champions League as a manager…he had something that was more than just winning trophies. He connected players, manager and fans together. Without being too romantic about it, Chelsea supporters want a club that has soul…they had that with di Matteo because he loved Chelsea and everyone loved him…now, Roman Abramovich has appointed a guy [Rafa Benitez] who the fans don’t like.

Paul McCarthy: Peter, would you like to be the Chelsea manager, other than the fact you get a massive pay-off?

Peter Reid: I think the ethos and soul of the club has been lost. Mr Abramovich owns the club, he does things his way but there has to be class, there has to be tradition and a human element. When you have people in professional positions, let them get on with it. When Jose Mourinho was in charge he [Abramovich] brought in the Ukrainian [Andrey Shevchenko] which is undermining the manager.

Ian Ladyman: I think Chelsea have underperformed by winning only three titles [under Abramovich] given the money they’ve spent.

Neil Custis: People say the fans will be there when Abramovich has gone…I’m not sure when Abramovich goes and the glory goes Stamford Bridge will be full. People have jumped on the bandwagon at Chelsea. They are a club who live on the edge though getting rid of di Matteo was a step too far. It was like Tiger Woods, when he was a naughty boy he was winning every Major going…now he’s calmed down he can’t hit a golf ball.  No disrespect to marriage…

Paul McCarthy: So you think he needs a cocktail waitress…?

Neil Custis: Some individuals, some clubs just live on the edge…

Steve Bates: Chelsea are a laughing stock. Clubs generally care about how they are perceived. They have a duty of care to run the club in the right way. Abramovich just doesn’t care. If you have that kind of attitude at the top it’s little wonder there’s no soul at the club.

Paul McCarthy: Gary, is the soul of a club set by the man at the top?

Gary Neville: Chelsea are a departure from what i know and what I’ve been used to. Are we glad that they are there? Do we want the Chelsea of 15 years ago back? In some ways they raise the level of interest but do they make the Barclays Premier League better? Have the players they’ve brought in made the league more competitive? Do we want a more competitive league? I think we do but I still can’t get my head around a club spending £100 million a year on players.

Peter Reid: The fit and proper person comes to mind…

Gary Neville: You look at Stoke or West Bromwich who are really well run and you think ‘that’s how it should be done.’ For me, I just don’t know where it’s going. A lot of Italian clubs spent huge but almost fell over the edge of the cliff…I just hope there isn’t a cliff moment for us.

Neil Custis: But why shouldn’t City fans dream that a Sheikh Mansour can come in and, even if it takes two or three years, they’ve caught up and joined the party? United fans are bitter but if you listen to them you’d think every player came through the academy. For about 10 years United out-bought every club in the league…they broke the British transfer record three years running. They have bought to stay at the top, it isn’t a new thing. Blackburn did it.

Paul McCarthy: Rafa Benitez is being abused at the moment but are fans booing the wrong person?

Ian Ladyman: They are to a degree. Sacking di Matteo was a ridiculous decision but Rafa is a convenient fall guy. They are booing the wrong guy but unless they’d replaced di Matteo with Mourinho, Pep Guardiola or Guus Hiddink it was always going to be hard.

Steve Bates: Any manager knows his cv isn’t going to be severely damaged by managing Chelsea.

Peter Reid: Do you think Guardiola will go there?

Steve Bates: I’m not sure he will. Maybe there are some managers who have a higher moral gauge than others…maybe Guardiola would see that working for Abramovich  is not the way he likes.

Gary Neville: It’d take a pretty strong character to turn the job down. There’s an open cheque book to sign the players you want…Guardiola may not take it but he’d be one of very few people who wouldn’t. You could argue United might be better for him or at City there’s a more patient structure…

Neil Custis: He packed it in at Barcelona in the fourth season because the pressure was too much for him. I would look, if I were the chairman of Manchester United, and ask: ‘Do I want someone like that?’ I think there’s a bit of a myth status.

Paul McCarthy: You have Mourinho who seems to be on his way out of Real Madrid and Guardiola in his penthouse in New York…where do you see them ending up?

Gary Neville: There’s an inevitability that one day, either in the near future or in two of three years, one will end up at City. Begiristain has been given a high level role, he has the ear of the owner…at some point he’ll want to stamp his mark on the club. I would suggest one of those managers would be pretty high on the list to go to City at some point.

Bob Cass [Mail on Sunday]: Every major decision at Chelsea is either instigated or ratified by Abramovich, I’d like to ask the panel their thoughts about the timing to award John Obi Mikel a new five-year contract on the eve of the announcement from the FA that he would be banned for three games for the near assault on Mark Clattenburg? And by the way, the FA treated Mikel with cotton wool. [applause]

Peter Reid: I’ve had so many rucks with referees over the years but they are the guardians of the game…to make accusations under those circumstances and then leak it to the press is an outrage. To give him a contract at this time…I’d have let everything die down.

Neil Custis: You have to be bang on if someone is accused of racism. Once again Chelsea’s behaviour and PR has been appalling. I feel sorry for referees with the heightened television analysis and scrutiny of their decisions…you won’t find a commentator who, with a penalty decision, says ‘that’s a penalty’ straight away. They’ll see the replay and make a decision. The referee does not have that chance. [applause]

Gary Neville: Players have an incredible amount of power [at Chelsea]. You are just not given a voice in that way in the dressing room I was part of. I can’t comprehend that from the structure I experienced. A player certainly couldn’t knock on the chief executive’s door to discuss tactics or selection. If the owner has given players that power, why wouldn’t they take it?  You can’t blame the players, it’s the way the club is run.

Peter Reid: I’m from a different generation and if the chairman invited me on his yacht, no chance. The team, yes, a player, no. I respected my managers. And by the way, I don’t think they’re bad principles. [applause]

Gary Neville: They are a truly unique football club and the owner doesn’t mind that sort of thing. In Italy they have some owners who are dictators and they are quite used to it but in this country we can’t comprehend.

Peter Reid: I still think it’s immoral doing that.

Paul McCarthy: A question from the floor…who will be the two clubs to join City and United in the Champions League [top four]?

Ian Ladyman: It will probably be Chelsea and Arsenal. I’m not sure if Tottenham have kicked on under Andre Villas-Boas, Everton are doing well but may run out of gas.

Neil Custis: I would put my house on Tottenham being in the top four. We’re now seeing a coach who was under pressure from the start at Chelsea, who was undermined by the players, who was told to change things but was up against a dressing-room that didn’t want change and it didn’t work for him. We are now seeing a young coach who is thriving. If the players allow him to continue, and he needs the backing of [chairman] Daniel Levy, I can see Tottenham finishing in the top four.

Steve Bates: Everton would be thinking this is their best chance for a few seasons to get fourth spot because of turmoil surrounding clubs you’d expect to be in there. If they can keep that group of 14 players fit they have a great chance.

Paul McCarthy: A question from the floor about Arsene Wenger…

Neil Custis: People talk about playing the right way…I would argue that football the right way is getting results.

Peter Reid: Mr Wenger has not won trophies for a long time but he’s built a new stadium and the club are in a great situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he buys a lot of players in January.

Andy Dunn: Is Gervinho good enough? Is Podolski good enough? Is Giroud good enough?

Peter Reid: The Manchester United players aren’t as good as 10 years ago.

Paul McCarthy: The question is, how much longer can Arsenal go on not winning anything?

Neil Custis: It’s not a great business model for a club of their size to not win anything for seven years, whether they’ve built a new stadium or not. The yardstick for any club is being successful and Arsenal aren’t.

Simon Mullock (Sunday Mirror): Do you think with Guardiola on the market, Fergie would step aside and not let United miss the opportunity?

Gary Neville: When he decides he doesn’t want to do it any longer he may assist in the transition of a new manager. I think he believes in his own ability to continue to run the football club. It’s the question I am asked most and I don’t have a clue. I don’t think he [Ferguson] knows, I don’t think [chief executive] David Gill knows…unless it’s the best kept secret in the world but it would get out. Going back to Arsene Wenger, it’s not acceptable to not win a trophy for seven years. It wasn’t acceptable for United to win a Championship for 26 years. It’s not acceptable now for Liverpool not to have won the title for 22 years…

United fan in audience: Can you say that again!

Gary Neville: Big football clubs have always gone through periods where they are only successful to a degree. In cycles Arsenal will be OK, they will come back and start winning leagues again.

Neil Custis: I remember having a conversation with Frank Clark when he was at Nottingham Forest. I said the game the previous night was rubbish…it’s an entertainment industry. He said: ‘It isn’t, it’s something fans go to in order to see their team win. If that happens, they are happy.’

Paul McCarthy: Right, to finish…what will the top four be at the end of the season?

Ian Ladyman: Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal.

Gary Neville: The same.

Andy Dunn: United, City, Chelsea, Spurs.

Peter Reid: Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham, Chelsea.

Neil Custis: City, United, Tottenham, Everton.

Steve Bates: I agree with Neil.

NEXT WEEK: The FWA panel reveal what it is like working with Sir Alex Ferguson and Roberto Mancini.

IT TOOK ME FIVE MINUTES TO MAKE UP MY MIND

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After 20 years reporting the best games and the best teams, the Daily Mail’s chief football correspondent MATT LAWTON is ready for a new challenge as executive sports editor

By CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

IT HAD been an enjoyable summer for Matt Lawton, the Daily Mail’s chief football correspondent. Despite England doing what they usually do at major tournaments and losing on penalties in the quarter-finals, Euro 2012 was the best finals for many years, full of excellent football and outstanding individuals while Poland and Ukraine proved not to be the war zones predicted in some – well one – quarter.

Lawton then reported on the swimming at London 2012 which enabled him to tick off another ambition, covering an Olympic Games. The day after his Olympic stint had ended his phone rang. It was the office. Not about some pre-season features. How would he like to become executive sports editor?

“It came out of the blue,” said Lawton who has been on the road for almost 20 years working for the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express. If being a football writer is a job coveted by many, then being a football correspondent, covering only the best games and best teams, is as good as it gets. Giving it up is not easy but it was an offer Lawton could not refuse. In fact, his mind was made up in five minutes.

“Yes, it was a big decision,” Lawton told footballwriters.co.uk. “To give up what many people think is the best job in the world is difficult, but after 11 years [as the Mail’s chief football correspondent] I thought it was the right time to try something different. It’s a chance to test myself again – not that the job doesn’t test you every day.

“When you are offered an opportunity like this it’s very difficult to turn down. Within about five minutes of being asked and once I’d got over the initial surprise, I was quickly getting into the idea.

“I’ll miss the banter of being on the circuit but there are a lot of guys I’m looking forward to spending more time working with in the office.”

These are exiting times for the Daily Mail with a significant expansion of the web site imminent. “It will be fascinating to be part of all this,” said Lawton who admitted his experience of working “inside” is almost zero.

He said: “The most production experience I’ve had was when I was on the Western Daily Press. We did everything. I wrote, I subbed and once a week I was stone sub.

“I’m not going to walk in on day one and draw a page. We have some very capable people to do that, though it is something I’ll have to learn so I can have more judgement about the pages.”

Lawton knows he has some of the industry’s finest sports writers to all upon, with Martin Samuel a multi award-winning columnist. In football and cricket, the sports that tend to generate the most back page leads, it is rare for the Daily Mail not to lead the way on the biggest stories and Lawton, a football correspondent who never lost his eye for an exclusive, will still be working with the reporters to bring stories to the pages.

He said: “I’ll be part of a team overseeing a very strong sports desk. We have brilliant writers and brilliant reporters.”

Lawton, who starts his new job next month, will still appear in the sports pages, but once every other month as opposed to virtually every day. He said: “There is a desire for me to do the occasional interview. I enjoy doing them and it would have been one side of the job I’d miss most of all. I like meeting new people…different sportsmen…and this is something the new job will allow me to do, maybe half a dozen a year.“

His experience on the road will help Lawton in his new position because the sharp end of a sports desk needs a combination of a top class production team plus those who have sampled life on the circuit.

He joins head of sport Lee Clayton and sports editor Les Snowdon as the major decision makers and said: “I think it can be of benefit to reporters to have somebody in a senior position on the desk who has been there, seen it and done it to work alongside the production guys.

“Lee is the perfect example of a former football writer who is a brilliant sports editor, the best I’ve ever had. With the different skills Lee and Les bring to running our department, I could not wish for two better teachers.”

And Lawton has been fortunate to work under “some terrific sports editors” during his career. He said: “Bill Beckett was my first at the Western Daily Press. At the Express I had David Emery, then at the Telegraph it was David Welch before Colin Gibson brought me to the Daily Mail.”

Tim Jotischky succeeded Gibson before Clayton and then Snowdon assumed control on the Daily Mail sports desk.

Lawton remains part of the most successful media organisation in what the former inhabitants still refer to as Fleet Street. At the 2012 Press Awards the Daily Mail won eight prizes, including Newspaper of the Year with Mail Online named best web site.

FWA Q&A: Barry Flatman

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BARRY FLATMAN, taking a trip along memory lane, on being called Colin…Chairman Ken going down…and a Big Apple hair-dryer from Fergie

Your first ever job in journalism?
Covering Hayes in the Isthmian League for the Middlesex Advertiser and Gazette. I started on the Monday and the following evening went to pre-season training. An extremely tall and muscular teenager in a woolly hat, who appeared to have been working on a building site all day, turned up to sign. His name was Cyrille Regis.

Have you ever worked in a profession other than journalism?
In between leaving school and going to college, I worked in a builders’ merchants. I realised it probably wasn’t my true vocation in life when somebody told me to go to stock-take the gravel.

Most memorable match?
It does rather date me, but the 1975 FA Cup Final. Being a Fulham man the memories are not particularly joyful and, unfairly I think now, a picture always forms in my mind of goalkeeper Peter Mellor almost waving the West Ham forwards through like a policeman directing traffic.

The one moment in football you would put on a DVD?
The night I was as Luton v Millwall [in 1985] when the rioting away fans ran onto the pitch and started hurling turf and anything else they could rip up at the press box where I and several other intrepid reporters were desperately trying to file copy down telephones. Perhaps it might have elicited a medal for bravery whilst under fire. Either that, or a moment in the Stamford Bridge foyer. Chelsea had just been relegated and their then chairman, Ken Bates, fancied purging a bit of malice on the gathered press corps. “Going back to your council houses then?,” asked Chairman Ken as he got into the lift. “Going down, Ken?” replied Joe Lovejoy, then of the Mail on Sunday just before the lift doors closed.

Best stadium?
Having primarily covered tennis for the last couple of decades, I have never experienced the luxury of the Emirates or the Etihad. Thinking back to my football writing days, for atmosphere it was hard to beat a big European night at White Hart Lane, but for sheer magnitude the Nou Camp (or Camp Nou if you like) is some place.

…and the worst?
These days I figure well down the pecking order of the Sunday Times’ match-list when there is no tennis and I am sent to football. I always cringe when I’m told the destination is Crystal Palace. Has that press box been updated since the days of Big Mal? Birmingham City is also pretty awful and so is Portsmouth, but of course they are skint.

Your personal new-tech disaster?
It was back in the days of the Tandy and those two muffler connections we had to strap to a telephone receiver. In a fit of temper, when I could not get the things to work, I wound the elastic fastener so tight it snapped and was made to pay for a new pair by then Express sports editor Ken Lawrence.

Biggest mistake?
It happened just the other week during the US Open when Sir Alex Ferguson gate-crashed Andy Murray’s press conference with Sir Sean Connery. I could be wrong, but he appeared to have had a glass or two of red wine and was very convivial. So I chanced a joke to him that it was the longest he’d spent talking to the press in years. At first he laughed but five minutes later in the corridor outside growled: “I’ll remember you.”

Have you ever been mistaken for anyone else?
For a while Graham Taylor always used to call me Colin. “How are you Colin? Nice to see you Colin. No, you cannot talk to that player Colin.” When I later pointed out the error to him, thinking he was having a Trigger-like problem from Only Fools and Horses (Rodney always being called Dave) he admitted to mixing me up with Colin Gibson [ex-Daily Telegraph football correspondent].

Most media friendly manager?
Tough one this because two stand out. Back in the day, you just couldn’t beat Jim Smith. Always helpful, regularly comical and more often than not an invitation into his office afterwards for a glass of something. The late Ray Harford was also a top bloke; he didn’t suffer fools but was always totally honest which couldn’t be said for some of his contemporaries.

Best ever player?
As a kid I used to love watching Rodney Marsh play, George Best was somebody really special and nobody, but nobody had the class of Bobby Moore. In a working capacity, the most naturally talented player I have regularly written about would have to be Gazza.

Best ever teams (club and international)?
Barcelona of the current day, and Brazil of 1970.

Best pre-match grub?
I don’t know about pre-match but you couldn’t beat the scones with jam and occasionally cream they used to serve during half-time at Craven Cottage.

Best meal had on your travels?
In terms of magnificent setting then it’s Doyles On The Beach, across the harbour from Sydney. But for great food then I make it a tie between Santopadres in Rome and Smith and Wollensky in New York.

…and the worst?
Now I like Chinese food in Britain. But in the Press Restaurant in Shanghai a few years back they served up things I wouldn’t feed to the dog that always used to chase me on my paper round.

Best hotel stayed in?
The Park Hyatt in Dubai. I walked into the suite I had been given and felt a compunction to ring reception to ask if there had been some kind of mistake…but I managed to fight off the urge.

…and the worst?
The Shinjuku Washington Hotel in Tokyo. Some might call the ability to touch all four walls whilst laying in bed – homely but I drew the line at pillows that seemed to be filled with pebbles.

Favourite football writer?
In terms of dedication to duty and being well informed then I don’t think you can beat Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph. Of the younger breed I go for Tim Rich of The Guardian or Sam Wallace on The Independent.

Favourite radio/TV commentator?
Mike Ingham (radio) and Martin Tyler (TV). Both consummate professionals and very nice blokes in the bargain.

If you could introduce one change to improve PR between football clubs and football writers what would it be?
In tennis the press are still regarded as part of the sport rather than aliens. We are allowed to mix with the players and are therefore on first name terms with megastars like Nadal, Federer and Murray. I appreciate it is asking the impossible in today’s football but it would be a reversion to the way things were back in my days of football scuffling. I don’t expect perpetually open doors to the press at training grounds or players’ lounges but football writers should be not be regarded as a huge threat.

One sporting event outside football you would love to experience?
Being at the Ryder Cup when Europe made that astonishing comeback or watching Usain Bolt win gold.

Last book read?
Reelin’ In The Years by Mark Radcliffe…a thoroughly entertaining read for somebody of my advanced age who has always liked music but admits to being completely non-plussed when somebody called Example entered the Fulham press room.

Favourite current TV programme?
Much to my family’s dismay, whenever at home I tend to get engrossed with Sunday Supplement. Then I get annoyed at Sky Sports for not having a tennis chat programme so I could pick up the same fees.

Your most prized football memorabilia?
The match programme from Aston Villa beating Bayern Munich in the 1982 European Cup final signed by all the players. They were the good old days when the press were allowed to go out and celebrate with those who did it on the pitch.

Advice to anyone coming into the football media world?
Honestly, I would struggle to advise any youngster wanting to come into the football media world on the ground floor when I see so many hugely talented and experienced writers being thrown out of the top storey because newspapers are trying to save money and see such professionals as dispensable.

Barry Flatman is the Sunday Times’ Tennis Correspondent and has been on the tennis tour for 20 years. Before that he was a football scuffler for the Daily Express. He decided to give up front-line football reporting because “I got pissed off with George Graham being so unhelpful and the likes of Eric Hall and Jerome Anderson telling me I couldn’t speak to their players because the Sun paid them more money.”

CONFESSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL WRITERS

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www.footballwriters.co.uk is one year old next week. We take a look back at some of the revelations in the popular Q&A section.

By CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

THE IDEA was to learn more about the football writers who spend their lives searching for stories that players, clubs and administrators would rather not be made public.

We have tried to lift the veil a little on those whose duty it is, lap-top and wi-fi permitting, to give readers their daily fix of news, match reports and columns.

Her Majesty’s working press, as we are called (by ourselves) are, of course, strictly neutral when it comes to reporting. To the extent many members of the Football Writers’ Association use their journalistic skills to disguise which team they support. John Cross of the Daily Mirror was giving nothing away, as four answers from his Q&A confirm:

Most media friendly manager?
Arsene Wenger. Never dodges a question, has always been respectful. A special mention for Sammy Lee and the late, great George Armstrong. Two gems. George Armstrong would give me a lift home after Arsenal reserve games!

Best ever player?
Thierry Henry gets my vote as player seen/covered live. We also forget how good Cesc Fabregas is.

Best ever teams (club and international)?
Arsenal – Invincibles; Spain – glorious to watch

Best pre-match grub?
Arsenal – fantastic food!

Laura Williamson of the Daily Mail gave us a clue about her allegiance with the one moment she would put on a DVD. She said: “Kevin Donovan’s goal for Grimsby Town against Northampton Town at Wembley in 1998, which took the Mariners back up to the old Division One. I had a dismal haircut and my face painted in black and white stripes, but they were certainly good times.”

They would be even better, Laura, if you were to send me a photo of your dodgy barnet and stripey face, which I promise would not be put on the site – you know you can trust me.

Laura’s Daily Mail colleague, football news correspondent Neil Ashton, gave footballwriters.co.uk an exclusive about his finest playing achievement. Ashton revealed: “It was when Steve Coppell turned to me and said: ‘You’re on’ in Geoff Thomas’s benefit game at the Colosseum between Crystal Palace and Manchester United in 2006.

“To play in the same team as my boyhood heroes – Geoff, Mark Bright, Ian Wright and Andy Gray and to play centre-half against Mark Hughes – was something I didn’t imagine could ever happen.

“Shaun Custis from the Sun was on the phone the next day and he said: ‘Right, you’ve got two minutes to tell me everything and then I never want to hear another word about it again.’

“Somehow I forgot to tell him I had clapped the Palace supporters in the Holmesdale Road when I walked off the pitch – unfortunately for me it has now become part of Matt Lawton’s entertaining dinner party stories.”

OK Matt, table for eight next Sunday evening? The after-dinner speaker taken care of.

Like Ashton, there is every reason to suspect The Guardian’s Dominic Fifield is also a Crystal Palace supporter. In Fifield’s view “Zinedine Zidane just edges out Vince Hilaire” as the best player he’s ever seen. Who’s third, Dom? Gerry Queen or Lionel Messi?

Football writers appear regularly on television these days and have become mini (in some cases mega or micro) celebrities. Yet as freelance Sam Pilger, who wrote the book Manchester United’s Best XI revealed, we can still be mistaken for someone else. In Pilger’s case it was Ryan Giggs and he got his retaliation in first when he told us: “As ridiculous as it sounds, I took part in a penalty shootout challenge against Peter Shilton on Hackney Marshes several years ago. I overheard someone say: ‘Is that Ryan Giggs?’

“As I said, ridiculous. More realistically, someone once asked if I was the former Leicester and Spurs American goalkeeper Kasey Keller.”

Daniel Taylor, The Guardian’s football correspondent, went one better and inadvertently mistook himself for a Manchester City goalscorer.

Taylor confessed: “I’d like to think the copytakers were to blame but, freelancing in pre-Guardian days, my match report of a Manchester City game for The Sun began with the words ‘Daniel Taylor scored a last-minute winner . . .’

“Clearly, it should have been Gareth Taylor. Though I’d argue that we had a similar first touch.”

You may struggle to find a seconder for that, Danny.

The Sun’s Neil Custis has built up a reputation as one of the best news reporters in Manchester and rarely gets a story wrong. But in the FWA confessional box, Custis came clean about the mother of all mistaken identities.

He said: “I thought I was talking to Kevin Francis from the Daily Star on the phone when in fact it was Kevin Francis, a man mountain of a striker for Stockport County. It is fair to say their builds and lifestyle are contrasting (No problem with a seconder there, Neil – Ed) so when Kevin told me the delay of two months in ringing me back was because he had been teaching kids football in the Caribbean, you can imagine my response.

“It was: ‘F*** off, you’re having a laugh, aren’t you? How the hell can you teach kids football?’

“This continued for some time before the penny finally dropped on my side. I don’t think we ever spoke again.”

Rob Shepherd rarely does things by halves so it was no surprise that he said he has been a serial victim of mistaken identities. Shepherd said he has “frequently” been mistaken for other people. Are you sitting comfortably?

Start copy: “Morrisey, Quentin Tarantino (at a poolside bar in Antigua….and I strung the guy along for an hour), James May (once), Jeremy Clarkson (often), Bert Millichip (by a limo driver in Las Vegas), Eric Joyce MP (the other day) and Desperate Dan (even by my two sons).”

Shep may not shave with a blow-torch, but the hair dryer treatment was given to Shaun Custis, now The Sun’s chief football writer, when he “excitedly” told Sir Alex Ferguson that “I was a new football reporter on The People and looked forward to working with him.”

The feeling did not appear to be mutual. Custis, whose excitement soon turned to trepidation, said: “He replied that he hated the paper and everybody on it and that he would get me a job in Glasgow where his mate was the sports editor. He said if I didn’t take the job he would have nothing more to do with me and he’s pretty much stuck to his word.”

FWA members have been fortunate enough to dine in some of the world’s finest restaurants and Oliver Kay, The Times’ football correspondent, added a rare moment of romance to the site when he said: “The best meal on a work trip was probably at the River Café in Brooklyn. Fantastic food, but probably above all because I’d flown my wife out to join me in New York at the end of a pre-season trip. If I’d gone there with a group of journalists, we would only have ended up talking shop.”

Eat your heart out George Clooney.

But it is not all caviar and champagne, especially in parts of Eastern Europe. David Lacey, the former football correspondent of The Guardian, remembers a meal in Albania “where the steak came last in the 3.30 at Tirana.”

Ian Ridley, author and chairman of high-riding St Albans City (fifth in the Evo-Stik League Southern), said his worst ever meal was: “Probably in Poland. Glenn Hoddle said he had picked a team there because it was ‘horses for courses.’ David Lacey pointed out that in Poland, it was horses for main courses.”

Philippe Auclair, France Football’s correspondent in England, claimed the belief that you can never have a bad meal in his homeland is wide of the mark. “Try Auxerre’s sandwiches,” he said, making it sound more like a challenge than a recommendation. “They might change your views on French cuisine.”

FWA life member James Mossop probably wins the prize for the most unusual meal which surprisingly was also the best meal he’s had on his travels. He said: “The late Bobby Keetch once ordered peacock’s tongues for me in Paris. At least, he said that’s what they were.”
Auxerre’s dodgy sarnies suddenly appear more attractive.

Of course, it is not just the food that makes for a memorable meal – the company and table chat are as important. Cathal Dervan, sports editor of the Irish Sun, will never forget an evening in Holland with two English colleagues not known for holding back with their views.

Dervan said: “My most memorable meal is a visit to an Argentinean steak-house in Amsterdam before an England game against Holland when Rob Shepherd and Joe Lovejoy discussed the Falklands War at length. I was waiting for the chef to carve them up any minute.”

While football writers are paid to do what other people pay to do, most started with more humble jobs. Dave Kidd, The People’s chief sports writer, began his working career by “stacking shelves in Superdrug as a student.”

But Kidd was too good to be left on the shelves. He said he “rose through the ranks to be in charge of loo roll, nappies and sanitary products…power probably went to my head.”

The Sunday Mirror’s Matt Law was involved in newspapers from a young age. “I was a paperboy,” he said and with an eye for easy money “also once volunteered to clean the school for extra cash, but I was sacked for mopping the ceiling.”

James Ducker, the northern football correspondent of The Times, is unlikely to give up his day job. And if he does Robbie Williams has little to worry about. Recounting his most embarrassing moment, Ducker said: “I was working at the MEN [Manchester Evening News] when the news editor suggested I should ‘audition’ for Pop Stars, one of the predecessors to X-Factor, and write a story on it for the next day’s paper.

“I’ve the worst voice imaginable, so I was torn between trying to sing a notoriously tough ballad while giving the impression that I thought I was really good like a lot of lunatics on those shows do, or just doing something silly. In the end I did a chicken dance while singing Jingle Bells in front of Pete Waterman and Geri Halliwell. She didn’t even laugh. She just looked at me with complete contempt.”

Taxi for Ducker…

He added: “They later rang me up to request permission to use the ‘footage’ on the highlights package but, regrettably or thankfully, I’m not sure which, my one shot at stardom never aired.”

James, the vote was a unanimous “thankfully.”

Daily Mirror columnist Steve Anglesey also had a brush with the music world which ensured he was destined never to become Gordon Ramsay II. Anglesey said: “I worked as a chef in Manchester’s (in)famous Hacienda nightclub in the mid-1980s.

“I walked out one megabusy Saturday night when, after the manageress had left me alone for two hours so she could go dancing with her mates, she returned to tell me that Spear Of Destiny had complained their chips weren’t brown enough.”

The passion Lee Clayton, the Daily Mail’s head of sport, has for his job and profession came over in his Q&A when he remembered how he learned from one of the industry’s doyens during his early days. Talking about his favourite football writer, Clayton said: “Alex Montgomery was my chief football writer on The Sun and he wrote match reports that were about the football.

“It was a pleasure to sit next to him in press boxes and listen to him dictating live reports to copytakers with his soft Scottish voice. He taught a young and very raw junior a lot on those nights. He also had a dignity and a presence that all football correspondents should have (and many do).

“I do think there are some brilliant writers around now. And they all work for the Daily Mail. Well, most of them do. I’m very lucky to have an amazing team who can write with intelligence, insight and authority. There is an art to good match reporting on tight deadlines.”

Exciting as the job is, it is not without its dangers. We all have tales of lap-tops malfunctioning (and why is it ALWAYS on deadline?) but the Daily Telegraph’s Mark Ogden had a more sinister problem.

The one moment in football Oggie would like to have on a DVD would have been at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He explained: “The guy who nicked my lap-top bag – lap-top still in it – outside a bar in Cape Town during the World Cup. Strictly speaking, not football, but he left me without a lap-top for the World Cup quarter-final between Germany and Argentina, so thanks for that.”

Guillem Balague, who does such a fine job on Sky Sports’ coverage of Spanish football, was the intended victim of two lap-top thieves in the middle of a radio broadcast, but forever the professional he stayed calm and carried on talking.

Balague said: “I was in Soho doing a live interview for Spanish radio, a show called El Larguero which has 1.3 million listeners. I was chatting to the presenter and the chairman of Real Madrid. I was on the phone referring to notes that were in my computer when two guys tried to snatch my lap-top. I ran away from them and was almost out of breath, still on air. I didn’t want to explain what was going on…”

And finally, Nigel Clarke of the Daily Express, a football writer who has multi-tasked by covering tennis, told of his biggest mistake. And in all honesty, they don’t really come much bigger.

The man known as Fonz tried to convince us that he did not have a happy day when he “walked into the ladies locker room at Wimbledon.”

Clarke’s intentions were entirely honourable and professional, of course. He said: “I was assisting an injured player who had turned her ankle, only to be confronted with about 10 naked tennis players, who stood their ground. Averted eyes and exited left very quickly.”

Hands up all who believe he (a) averted his eyes and (b) exited left very quickly.

I see no hands…

TRIGGS – FOOTBALL’S MOST FAMOUS DOG – TELLS ALL ABOUT HER OWNER

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“Dogs don’t talk s***” – Roy Keane

By CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

IT IS rare that a book, especially a football book, makes you laugh out loud. A private chuckle, yes, but an audible reaction to something you are reading is unusual, not to mention a little embarrassing if you are on a train, as I was.

The girl sitting next to me was intrigued after I completed my laugh-out-loud hat-trick. “What are you reading? It seems very funny.”

“It’s Triggs, the autobiography of Roy Keane’s dog. Roy was the captain of Manchester United and the Republic of Ireland,” I replied, hoping if not believing my answer would somehow justify my behaviour. I am certain if the train had not been so crowded the girl would have moved away.

A book by a talking dog is either going to be as funny as root canal treatment or a gem. Paul Howard has managed to achieve the latter, giving us a telling insight to a person few outside his immediately family really know. Gary Neville tells the story of when he changed his mobile number he sent it to those in his contacts and received a text back from Keane saying “why the **** are you telling me?” Keano doesn’t do friends, not the human variety anyway.

Keane defends his privacy in the way he protected the ball, once having to be dragged away from someone who took a photo of him and one of his children in a hotel swimming pool while on holiday. Yet while he guards his family with military precision and care, he is happy – okay, willing – to be photographed with man’s best friend.

The humour is often subtle and delicately handled, as it had to be. We are, after all, talking about a speaking dog. Howard has certainly done his homework, interviewing people close – well as close as Keane allows – to the former midfielder, enabling Triggs to observe her (yes, Triggs is a she) owner’s reactions to the many controversial incidents during his career. Reality and supposition may be intertwined but the conversations between Keane and Triggs are far more fascinating and funny than the concept of a man talking to his dog might initially appear.

Howard was a sports writer for the Sunday Tribune in Ireland where he wrote a satirical column based on schools rugby. Blackrock College, Ireland’s equivalent of Eton, is nicknamed Rock and Howard invented a character called Ross O’Carroll-Kelly – ROCK. While Howard admits the essentially local humour would not travel outside of Ireland, the books based on ROCK are set to top the million mark in the Republic with stage plays underlining the success of the novels.

“I took a two-year sabbatical but never went back,” said Howard, a former Irish Sports Journalist of the Year. “The newspaper I took a sabbatical from no longer exists. I thought I’d be in journalism forever but every year it seems another paper closes.”

The seeds for the book were sewn during the 2002 World Cup when Keane was sent home from Ireland’s training base in Saipan after the mother of all rows with manager Mick McCarthy. “I was in my hotel room in Japan watching Ireland’s greatest player, possibly ever, walking a labrador down a lane eight time zones away,” said Howard. “It was an iconic image and I feel Roy knew this. There was a defiance about him walking his dog. Most people in the news for the wrong reasons draw the curtains and stay in. Keane arrived home from the Far East and immediately took Triggs for a walk. The gates opened and the pair parted this shoal of paparazzi who were waiting outside.”

Howard had the idea of “what if Triggs was the boss and Roy was the servant?” He initially wrote some conversations between the pair, but put the scheme on hold for two years before selling the idea to a publisher and completing the manuscript.

“For me the humour was in the language. What if footballers, when they talk to each other, spoke exactly the same way they do in front of the television cameras? I challenged myself to write as many football cliches as I could, not ‘over the moon’ or ‘sick as a parrot’ stuff but things like ‘fantastically well’ and ‘ever so well.’ I mean, no young, working class hetrosexual male would ever say ‘ever so well.’ Unless you are a professional footballer.”

Keane comes out of the book ever so well and Howard said: “I am sympathetic to Roy who was, along with Brian O’Driscoll and Sonia O’Sullivan, one of the three most compelling Irish sports personalities of his generation.”

The difference is, Ireland’s rugby captain and the 1995 World Championships 5,000m gold medallist were more open to and with the media.

Recent reports of her death – GrrrRIP ran one headline – were vastly exaggerated and through Triggs the book provides an insight to Keane with a humour that very rarely fails to hit the button. Here are Triggs’ thoughts on Wayne Rooney:

I’ve always regarded professional footballers as, quite frankly, an intellectually inferior breed. This is a world, remember, in which David James is considered an intellectual because he begins sentences with the word ‘ironically’ instead of the word ‘obviously.’

A memory suddenly pops up at me from out of the recent past. It was one afternoon in Roy’s last full season as a Manchester United player and he telephoned Wayne Rooney at home to talk about some team matter or other.

“Can you phone me back later?” Wayne asked him. “It’s just that I’m reading at the moment.”

I remember the surprised smile that was suddenly slashed across Roy’s face. “What are you reading?” he wondered, always happy to hear about a team-mate making the effort to improve his mind.

“Ceefax,” came the reply.

I always liked Wayne. He was easy company and a great lover of dogs. And anyone expecting a cheap joke here about hookers, young or old, is going to be disappointed. He was, as they say in the parlance, a smashing lad and a top, top player. Yet whenever I think about Wayne, I always think of his mind turning over at the same rate it takes for those teletext pages to refresh themselves.

How did Triggs’ name come about? From Trigger in Only Fools And Horses which also happened to be Jason McAteer’s nickname but the connection is not with the player who famously said he’d rather buy a Bob The Builder CD than Roy Keane’s autobiography. Howard said: “Brian Clough had a labrador called Del Boy which he occasionally brought to training when Roy was with Nottingham Forest. I think Triggs was a compliment to Clough.”

Has Howard had any feedback from Keane? “No.”

Triggs – the autobiography of Roy Keane’s dog by Paul Howard (Orion Books, £9.99).

In Memoriam: Brian Woolnough

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By ANDY DUNN, FWA Chairman

WE knew this day was coming – but it makes it no easier. Sports journalism has lost a giant of a man.
Brian Woolnough was simply the foremost football reporter of his generation.

When we pay tribute, we should retire the centre seat of the front row at every England press conference.

No journalist was as passionate about England as Wooly. No journalist demanded more from England managers and players than Wooly.

He was an inspiration to us all. And a friend to us all.

A glass of red wine, a bowl of pasta, big day tomorrow. How many times have we heard that over the last three decades? How sad that we will never hear it again.

Brian was a brilliant print journalist. You do not hold down the job as chief football writer on The Sun – and then progress to be Chief Sports Writer of the Daily Star – without being at the very top of your profession.

And he led the way in giving his fellow scribes a bigger platform.

Effortlessly, he became an accomplished broadcaster – both on television and radio. And his wonderful manner has soothed the nerves of countless writers fortunate to appear alongside him on, first, Hold The Back Page, and then, the Sunday Supplement.

He became the voice of our business.

Wooly fought his battle against cancer with a bravery – and, indeed, humour – that amazed us all. And he loved the game – and our game – until his final moments. That passion never died.

And nor will his memory.

RIP Wooly.

FWA Q&A: Tony Banks

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TONY BANKS of the Daily Express on mixing up the Laudrups…upsetting Harry of Romford Market…and drinking with Scottish oilmen in Qatar…

Your first ever job in journalism?
I worked on the Informer group of free newspapers in Surrey/Middlesex area. Started off doing match reports for nowt for them on Kingstonian in the Isthmian League. Wouldn’ t recommend working for nothing though.

Have you ever worked in a profession other than journalism?
Worked in a factory making pieces for petrol pumps, then one packing medicines for Unichem for delivery to chemists. Brilliant moment when we arrived for work and factory had burned down, someone had tried to go through the roof with an acetylene cutter to get to the secure hard drugs section. Marvellous.

Most memorable match?
1991 FA Cup semi-final Spurs v Arsenal.

The one moment in football you would put on a DVD?
Obviously, one of my goals for the infamous Kew Barges. There were only two so it wouldn’t be a long clip.

Best stadium?
Probably Craven Cottage – or rather the walk to it through Bishops Park on a sunny day after a pint or two in the Bricklayers.

…and the worst?
Really not a fan of San Siro. Cold and austere – and the wi-fi is a nightmare. And Selhurst Park. Always a traffic jam, always windy.

Your personal new-tech disaster?
At Millwall. They had just knocked Southampton out of the cup in a midweek replay. Rewrite written just on deadline. Push button, piece disappears. Can’t find it anywhere – do it again over phone off top of head, stream of consciousness. That original piece is out there still somewhere. If you find it, send it home please. You’ll know it – lumpy, dull intro.

Biggest mistake?
Blimey. Calling Brian Laudrup “Michael” in a press conference. Tons of them. Called Anna Kournikova “Steffi”. Bit frosty after that. Did a line once that while Arsene Wenger shops in Armani, Harry Redknapp (then Pompey) has to make do with Romford Market. He didn’t think that was funny.

Have you ever been mistaken for anyone else?
Albert Steptoe. By my mum.

Most media friendly manager?
Can’t really look past Harry – mind you, he can look past me. But a big fan of Alan Smith (ex-Palace).

Best ever player?
Lionel Messi.

Best ever teams (club and international)?
Brazil 1970 – though never actually saw them live. Barcelona 2009/10.

Best pre-match grub?
Arsenal is very good but Chelsea (got to keep in with Theresa) is top notch now. And sweets!

Best meal had on your travels?
Some lovely cookies in Amsterdam. They were nice.

…and the worst?
Moldova. With Spurs. Uefa Cup. Pre-match banquet. Had the ice-cream. Don’t ask. Some of us still scarred by the experience.

Best hotel stayed in?
Can’t remember the name but it was in Qatar. Amazing. But no bar – only place you could get a drink was in a room on 34th floor. Full of Scottish oilmen who had all, oddly, played for Queen of the South.

…and the worst?
Some place in Moldova a long time ago…..

Favourite football writer?
I’m a fan of the news getters – so Pat Sheehan, John Cross, Kevin Moseley, Shaun Custis.

Favourite radio/TV commentator?
Martin Tyler. And Brian Moore, of course.

If you could introduce one change to improve PR between football clubs and football writers what would it be?
Trust us a bit more. Relax. Mostly we are on your side.

One sporting event outside football you would love to experience?
I’m generally late for events, so probably not the 100 metres final. Done a few GP’s, but fancy Monaco.

Last book read?
Robert MacFarlane “Wild Ways.”

Favourite current TV programme?
Boringly, it’s probably Match of the Day.

Your most prized football memorabilia?
Got a sign from Bradford Park Avenue’s old ground. Meat pies 3d. Doesn’t actually say its from Park Avenue on it, but it is.

Advice to anyone coming into the football media world?
First, be persistent. Then work your nuts off and get numbers in your book. More the better.

GIROUD HAS A GRACE AND HUMILITY JOEY BARTON CAN ONLY PLAGIARISE

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Montpellier make their debut in the Champions League on September 18 against Arsenal who bought the French club’s top scorer Olivier Giroud this summer. As LAURE JAMES reports, while the rugby-loving city is not a hotbed of football the France striker is a class act.

MONTPELLIER’S success is impossible to overestimate. Indeed, it cannot be justified in terms of figures. For once, established parallels between big budgets and silverware do not apply.

The club had never won the domestic title before, with a third-place finish in 1988 their previous best effort. Their average attendance is eighth highest in a league of 20 and their propensity to spend is even less favourable. They have only the 14th highest budget in the French League.

Millionaire (or richer) consortiums are a relatively new phenomenon in France but welcomed by LFP, the league’s governing body who long to see the country once again challenging at the top level, namely the Champions League.

What they had never bargained for was a small, provincial club devoid of any point to prove racing to the top of the division. And staying there. Suddenly Montpellier could cling to a real achievement: a league title, a place in the Champions League, a revenue stream, a star on their chest and a buoyant future.

Montpellier is not a football city. It never has been. Culturally aware, spiced with a greater number of theatre and concert venues per capita than anywhere else in France, the fastest-growing metropolis in the Languedoc region is also home to a young, liberally-minded well-educated population. So, given the magnitude of the rugby team, are Rene Girard’s men criminally under-supported because 98 per cent are egg chasers? No. From experience of the city’s magnificently varied make-up, a little more than half follow rugby while a third are either profiting from their art-house cinema membership or fiercely parading Moroccan flags in areas of deprivation. The rest may be heard, albeit louder than ever before, to be crying “allez, allez!” from Avenue de Heidelberg.

The next, already festering question is whether rising to become champions of France will also prove to be a kiss of death. Will the squad, following more exits of note than acquisitions during the transfer window, be cannon-fodder on the Champions League stage?

Losing top scorer Olivier Giroud, destined to emerge as a household name after signing a significant four-year deal with Arsenal, represents more than the sacrifice of 21 goals in a trophy-winning season. Erudite and charming, youthful and an epicurean, Giroud rebuffs football stereotypes and instead exemplifies the city of Montpellier’s popularity – and population. Crediting his father for developing both his superlative taste in wines and interest in buying up Pic St Loup vineyards, the striker embraces life’s finery. He illustrates why Joe Cole became a Francophile and achieves, with perfect grace and humility, what Joey Barton [on loan to Olympique Marseille] can only plagiarise.

We must also consider manager Rene Girard’s future. Is he likely to be prised away given the job he’s done? Or will he remain at the head of a club’s coaching pyramid which also boasts academy success and a strong scouting network which has the ability to spot a bargain?

Discussions on whether the future will bring minor disintegration rather than sustained prowess are unlikely to trouble Montpellier fans. The championship has brought with it a recognition, at least throughout Europe, upon which it is impossible to place a value. It feels like a distant acquaintance remembering your name. It sparks a sense of pride and validates your obsession, your adoration – not as if it were needed, of course.

Fanaticism, like true love, can wilt as quickly as it deepens or fold as inconspicuously as it cements. But it never really disappears. And now, from afar, my team are champions.

From LIFE’S A PITCH – The Passions Of The Press Box edited by Michael Calvin (Integr8 Books, £10.99). The book is dedicated to the memory of Danny Fulbrook, chief football writer of the Daily Star and a member of the FWA’s national committee. Laure James, who is based in Belfast, is tri-lingual, having both English and French heritage. She contributes regularly to the Daily Mail, Sky Sports and talkSPORT.

TV’s Original Panel was Loud, Brash, Insulting but Hugely Watchable

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By the summer of 1970, Derek Dougan was among the highest profile footballers in Britain, scoring goals for Wolves and Northern Ireland and soon to be elected chairman of the PFA. As DAVID TOSSELL reveals, he was also about to become part of a revolution in televised football along with Malcolm Allison, Pat Crerand and Bob McNab:

IT WAS 1970 when ITV supposedly showed the way forward by presenting football analysis in the style of four blokes enjoying a pint at the local. The ‘World Cup panel’, which added studio-base vibrancy to a tournament already made unthinkingly exotic by colour television and the wonderful Brazilians, is acknowledged as having revolutionised television punditry. It is true to the extent that the panel format henceforward became the standard for televised football, but watching the presenting team on the latest Sky Sports Super Sunday bears little resemblance to the chaos over which Brian Moore attempted to preside in the summer of ’70. It was more Tiswas than Match of the Day.

The man responsible was John Bromley, then head of ITV sport, who asked Moore to stay at home, teaming him as usual with Jimmy Hill. What followed was an inspired piece of alchemy as Derek Dougan, Manchester City coach Malcolm Allison, Manchester United midfielder Pat Crerand and Arsenal and England full-back Bob McNab were thrown into the mix, wearing colours so bright and collars so wide that Moore looked like the John Alderton character, Hedges, trying to control his rowdy and fashion-conscious Class 5c in Please, Sir!. The result was a month of television that was loud, brash, often controversial, sometimes downright insulting and always hugely watchable. For the first time in the broadcasting of sports events, ITV’s figures regularly matched the BBC, which managed to look safe and staid even with Brian Clough as part of its team.

Allison, evolving into ‘Big Mal’, was the star, irreverent and dashing but with the mind of a brilliant coach to add substance to his style. Dougan played the role of his nemesis, sitting to his right, often choking on the fumes from Allison’s Cuban cigar, and mixing Irish charm and humour with a hard critical edge. Scotland international Crerand, in the manner of his play, was abrasive and energetic, while McNab offered the insight of a player who had been in the England squad until a few days earlier.

‘We need some people who can actually talk lucidly about football,’ had been the guiding principle of Bromley, who changed his mind about using his panellists individually and opted instead to throw them all on screen at once. ‘Crerand and Allison were the baddies,’ he added, ‘and the charming Dougan with the lovely McNab were the goodies. They became folk heroes in four weeks.’

Moore recalled that ‘they gave football punditry a fresh intoxicating sparkle’, while Dougan, looking back years later, said, ‘We were the first four people ever invited on television to actually speak about our sport. The chemistry was right and we used to spark off each other. Not once did we have a rehearsal. Malcolm was the only guy that I have ever worked with who could drink an excess of champagne and not slur his words.’

McNab remembers, ‘People had never seen anything like it although I am not sure we all realised it was ground-breaking at the time. Jimmy tried to control it, but Malcolm would take the piss out of him unmercifully. Actually, we all ended up taking the piss out each other. Without disrespect to Derek, he didn’t have the intellectual football ideas of Malcolm. We noticed that he would start repeating some of the stuff Malcolm said off-camera so sometimes Mal would set him up and say the opposite of what he thought. It was all great fun and we all had a lot of respect and affection for each other.’

McNab also remembers the group whiling away the afternoons at the Hendon Hall hotel before their evening broadcasts. ‘We used to play head tennis and nobody wanted to play on Derek’s team because all you had to do was hit it to his right foot and you would win the point.’

This group of articulate, stylishly dressed men were enthralling viewers who followed football every day of their lives and making the sport easily accessible to those whose interest barely extended to the FA Cup final, the one club game televised live each season. Fan letters and autograph hunters became an even bigger part of their lives. McNab even recalls the group eating in a restaurant one night and being joined by Michael Caine who wanted to ‘have a drink with the lads’.

In Sunshine or In Shadow: A Journey Through The Life of Derek Dougan by David Tossell, published by Pitch Publishing, is available as hardback or eBook at amazon.co.uk.

FWA Q&A: Steve Anglesey

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Daily Mirror columnist STEVE ANGLESEY on undercooking Spear of Destiny’s chips…an un-matey deputy sports editor…plus a loud argument, noisy sex and deep snoring

Your first ever job in journalism?
Book and film reviews for the posh Cheshire Life magazine, mid 1980s. Which naturally led to a job writing about American football in 1987.

Have you ever worked in a profession other than journalism?
As Jamie Jackson never tires of hearing, I worked as a chef in Manchester’s (in)famous Hacienda nightclub in the mid-1980s. I walked out one megabusy Saturday night when, after the manageress had left me alone for two hours so she could go dancing with her mates, she returned to tell me that Spear Of Destiny had complained their chips weren’t brown enough.

Most memorable match?
In person: Attempting to make sense of Man City 2-2 v Liverpool on the last day of 1995/96. Had to fill 12 pages on it overnight for the club magazine. As we’d just been relegated because of Alan Ball’s invisible radio and no players would speak, it wasn’t a best-seller.

In the office: Liverpool’s Miracle in Istanbul. “We’ll be in the pub for last orders,” we said at half-time. We weren’t.

The one moment in football you would put on a DVD?
“Aguerooooooooooo!” I own the DVD.

Best stadium?
Football: The Emirates/The Bernabeu. Other: The Linc in Philadelphia.

…and the worst?
Boundary Park on a cold night. Or on any night. Or day.

Your personal new-tech disaster?
One of my roles in my first proper job was to delete all the previous week’s copy on the servers. With one missed keystroke I managed to wipe out all of the current week’s paper, plus all the files for three magazines we were currently working on. None of it could be rescued.

Biggest mistake?
On my first shift at the News Of The World, circa 1988, I turned up sporting a No.1 cut and wearing a leather jacket and a T-shirt with a Vincent Van Gogh print on it. I had four pints during my break, came back and called the deputy sports editor “mate”. He replied: “It’s mister f*****g mate to you, son.” I didn’t do many shifts there.

Have you ever been mistaken for anyone else?
Elton John (I guess that’s why I support the Blues).

Most media friendly manager?
Owen Coyle/Ian Holloway

Best ever player?
For City: Trevor Francis. Everyone else: Maradona.

Best ever teams (club and international)?
Club: The City team in the 5-1 at White Hart Lane and the 6-1 at Old Trafford last season. International: Brazil 1982, the best fifth-place team ever.

Best pre-match grub?
Corned beef hash and mushy peas, Elland Road, circa 1995

Best meal had on your travels?
Just about anything in New Orleans on NFL trips. The last one was robin (the bird) gumbo.

…and the worst?
Mystery meat in “the best restaurant in Moscow” the night before the Steve McClaren disaster in 2007, washed down by a £16 bottle of lager in Abramovich’s bar afterwards.

Best hotel stayed in?
Essex House, New York or Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans.

…and the worst?
Nameless fleapit opposite Newcastle Station. Went on a dream job for FourFourTwo – watch the Tyne/Tees derby during NUFC’s relegation season under Shearer in Shearer’s Bar inside St James’. They beat Middlesbrough to give themselves a chance of staying up and whenever they scored it was like the opening scene of Fraggle Rock. By the final whistle, a handsome bloke in a replica No.9 shirt was simultaneously snogging one girl while groping, and being groped by, another blonde behind him, out of the first girl’s line of vision. Maybe it was the three of them in the next room who kept me up all night with a loud argument followed by noisy sex and then deep snoring.

Favourite football writer?
Current: Ollie Holt and Martin Samuel. All-time: Hugh McIlvanney.

Favourite radio/TV commentator?
Current: Martin Tyler and Mike Ingham. All-time: Brian Moore and Peter Jones.

If you could introduce one change to improve PR between football clubs and football writers what would it be?
Clubs should take a one-season gamble on improving trust between players and writers by opening the training ground dressing room once a week, NFL-style.

One sporting event outside football you would love to experience?
The Argentina Grand Prix, when/if revived.

Last book read?
Creole Belle by James Lee Burke. He’s been writing the same book for 25 years but it’s always the best book you’ve ever read.

Favourite current TV programme?
Treme, Parade’s End, Girls (starts next month on Sky Atlantic, unmissable)

Your most prized football memorabilia?
Replica Corgi-style model of City’s team bus on the 1956 parade with the FA Cup.

Advice to anyone coming into the football media world?
Don’t do a media course at college. Specialise and start a blog about a facet of sport you’re interested in. Use Twitter assiduously. Hassle a website/paper/mag you like, get in on work experience and make yourself part of the furniture. Find a mentor there – someone as good as Ian Stirrup, Alan Lees and Loz Hatton, Danny Kelly and Howard Johnson, Des Kelly and Dean Morse would be nice but you’d be lucky – then watch what they do and try to do the same. And look after your teeth.