Feature article by Mark Hodkinson

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Feature: Running with the Press Pack, 2000

Poor sod, he didn't stand a chance. I was on his back in a second, grabbing at his clothing. Instinctively he turned around, fists clenched, bewildered, out for revenge. 'Sorry mate, I lost my footing,' I pleaded. His face was on fire, his features bent out of shape: 'Just be f**king careful next time.'

The press box at Sunderland's old ground, Roker Park, was notoriously cramped. Once in situ, you stayed put. It was a bit like one of those old prison movies; attempts to escape were futile. If you needed to take a leak, an empty crisp bag was just about the only option. Foolishly, I had chosen to walk the plank - a thin strip of wood placed inches away from a line of reporters on which they plonked their notebooks and Prozac. The bloke from The Telegraph stood between me and a few broken ribs. No choice at all, really.

Afterwards, nothing was said. Accidents happen. Especially when you're part of the press pack, specifically the rock-hard, up-for-it, no-nonsense football sub-sect.

I spent two years running with the pack (well, kind of limping along at a comfortable distance really) for The Times, covering the northern patch, a geographical area stretching from Filbert Street to St James' Park. Oh, the laughs, the japes, the scrapes. Except it wasn't like that. It was actually quite a slog, and often pretty disheartening.

At one of my first games, I inadvertently positioned myself between two top buddies in the press box. They didn't let my presence spoil their game plan. They spoke across me, discussing last night's curry in great detail. I didn't exist. This was my welcome, or, more accurately, unwelcome to the pack, a world where the new boy is a nobody until its hierarchy deem otherwise.

Initiation takes years. They have to believe that you are trustworthy (you won't sneak Alan Shearer into a side-room for a quick exclusive); deferential ('Bob from The Mail sits there, he'll want a word with you if you take his seat'); and, finally, that you aspire to caricature. They expect a certain force of personality, that you are so keen to join their rank you will become bullish, cranky, loud, a cartoon with a notebook.

Individually, most football writers are decent enough. They have been bullied into flinty camaraderie by circumstance. Much like the sport itself, it is a highly pressured occupation. Deadlines are tight, fuses short. Imagine: big European tie, Sportsdesk suddenly demand an extra 300 words. The match goes into extra time, then penalties. Five minutes before deadline, your laptop crashes. Some prat has got his leg trapped around your phone lead and wrenched it out of the socket. You're screaming every swearword you've ever heard into his face, which is inches away. Then Sportsdesk phone again, and they are screaming too, blue bloody murder. At this point, you're dead anyway. More or less. When you read your report the next day, it will feel like someone else wrote it. Someone else did, a stress junky in an overcoat with a bad temper.

Most football writers are under contract to individual newspapers, but many are freelance and are paid on a match-by-match basis. The fee from national papers varies from £60 to £150 for a report, depending on length. Hmmm, not bad for 90 minutes work. But this is to overlook the travelling. It can often take most of a day to travel to and from a ground. There are other peripheral hassles: the traffic jam on the motorway; the rat-scurry to find a parking space; the missing press ticket at reception; someone in your seat in the press box; your phone going wonky. Arrggh.

In practice, reporters don't see much of the game they are covering. They spend most of the time writing and, out of necessity, a game is broken down into a series of incidents that will make neat, punchy paragraphs. Very rarely is there any kind of aesthetic pleasure. Mostly, it's a furious adrenaline overload. Additionally, reporters are denied the privilege of partisanship. It is some torment to cover a game - no matter how supposedly glamorous the location - when your own team is slogging it out somewhere else. Many times, for instance, I have been at Anfield or Old Trafford, and dreamed wistfully of being with my beloved Rochdale at the Shay, Feethams, or wherever.

Within the pack, there are several cliques. The lowest caste is made up of reporters from local papers. They are plundered for their local knowledge, but later elbowed out of the way if they fall between a national hack and a player giving an impromptu interview. The tabloid writers are, typically, the most inveterate and gung-ho. Like footballers, they have nicknames and live fast. They are quick-witted and sharp, usually filing reports while a match is in progress. This requires a great deal of skill and clarity of thought. They have scant regard for their broadsheet peers, who are largely viewed as effete. A common dig is that their reports are too ornate, with precious attention to the mechanics of a match. All those adjectives, and descriptions of the scones in the press room - backs to the wall, lads!

Between games, full-time football writers are expected to file stories on a daily basis. The country is divided up and a reporter 'adopts' a handful of clubs on his patch. There are several essential sources of information they all use - Clubcall, web-sites, fanzines and local newspapers. Outside these, they develop a network of contacts based in and around clubs. They form quasi-friendships with club employees, sometimes paying 'tip' fees for snippets of information or a player's home number. Contacts are protected and there is a fierce code of honour among this training ground cabal. It might seem unlikely, but few reporters would file a story that did not contain at least a tenuous relationship with the truth. Again, it may surprise many, but papers are concerned about their credibility and too many unsubstantiated stories with the by-line, 'W. Mitty' ultimately affect sales.

Players are generally reporter-friendly, despite their supposed antipathy. Most will stop for a chat after training or a match and don't insist on contracts or payment; in fact, they seldom ask which paper you are with. A lengthy, exclusive interview is a different matter and will usually incur either a fee or a plug for a corporate sponsor. Much is done on trust, and it is rarely breached. Most of the controversial stories about footballers emanate from sources outside the game and football writers openly criticise their news-hound counterparts. They quite like their cosy, insular, all-pals-together boot-room world. After-match press conferences, for example, are routinely benign. More time is spent on a run-through of the injury-list than the incident in the communal bath involving three blondes and a Swedish TV camera crew.

Often, there is collusion between players (or their agents) and reporters. They will hint that a player is unsettled to alert other clubs of his availability - this might galvanise a transfer or improve an agent's negotiating power. Reporters, since they can become confidantes of players and managers, sometimes become unlikely go-betweens, piecing together transfers.

The maxim that people get the press they deserve is a truism in football. If a player is polite and obliging it is unlikely he will receive negative press. The coverage earlier this season of the fall-out between Rob Lee and Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United proved the point. Lee, over many years, has earned his good press by virtue of an accommodating, unpretentious nature. In truth, the press knew little detail of the shenanigans at St James Park, but Lee was portrayed wholly sympathetically. Gullit, meanwhile, had brushed past them many times seeking out a television camera or a pizza commercial. So, come the time, they celebrated their good guy, buried their bad.

Print journalism was once a major constituent to football, indeed part of its fabric. Its role has been greatly reduced by a deluge of information outlets, among them television, radio, Teletext, Clubcalls and the Internet. Press facilities still exist at grounds, but this is a historical debt rather than a real endorsement. Football clubs are obsessed by control and many are frustrated that press publicity does not garner them any direct revenue. Nor do they hold any sway over the portrayal of their club in print. Before too long, a rugged financier like Ken Bates will surely demand that newspapers pay for their press season tickets. The year after, he'll shut the press box down, put glass in front of it and double his money by selling it off as a hospitality suite. Press lads? Who needs them? Troublesome gits.

Until that ghastly day, clubs should emulate the hospitality of Leeds United. At half time there is a hurried exodus as the press corps scurry down to tuck into steaming hot-pots. Chips, peas and tureens, no wonder their upturn in form has been so widely exalted. We love Leeds. They also had the foresight to enclose their press box and provide tip-up cinema seats. Everyone stays warm and dry and happy: Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!

The friendliest doorman is the cheerful chap at Old Trafford. Sure, we all know the club is generally a PR trouser accident, but this is a genuinely kind soul. He smiles as he checks your press pass and gladly hands over your free programme. At other clubs, they are left in boxes and dished out grumpily only when the doorman is threatened with a sound beating. The choice of grub is peculiar at United - the odd Bakewell tart, a flaky sausage roll, - the kind of fare rustled up on a quick dash around Spar. Strange catering for a global institution. Quite endearing too.

Roker Park, of course, is no more, but press boxes designed by masochistic architects are still with us, even at newly built stadia. Middlesbrough's Riverside is another bizarre experiment in people and space. Basically, not much space, lots of people, watch them fall over one another. The box at Bolton's Reebok is so high reporters are pre-warned about nosebleeds and handed nets to catch pigeons. Port Vale's press 'facilities' are legendary. Two portable sheds are perched on the main stand. When the wind blows, nervous glances are exchanged and someone is dispatched to check that the ladder down is still in place. Such glamour.

Come again? The football hack's vocabulary in full...

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