Hartlepool’s own goal

HERE at The Northern Echo, we’re used to being banned by shortsighted, power-crazed football clubs. During the surreal George Reynolds years at Darlington FC, the chairman was forever telling us we were banned – every time we published something he didn’t like. It became a way of life.

“You’re ******* banned,” George would yell down the phone just about every day.

“Aye, righto, George,” we’d reply.

Mind you, it wasn’t his only way of settling disputes. He once challenged my deputy Chris Lloyd to a stripped-to-the-waist wrestling match in the market square.

“They say the pen’s mightier than the sword.

Well, I’ll bring me sword and you bring yer pen and we’ll see which one’s mightier,” he roared.

Those of you who know him will appreciate that the bespectacled Mr Lloyd would have trouble wrestling the foil off a match day pie, so we politely declined George’s kind offer.

Just about every local newspaper editor in the country has been banned, or threatened with a ban, by football clubs. When Charlton Athletic banned the Greenwich Mercury a few years back, the paper responded by b a n n i n g Charlton from its pages.

The Kent Messenger Group was banned by Gillingham chairman Paul Scally for several years, leading to the Medway Today newspaper paying the owner of a house overlooking the ground £60 a week to take pictures from his roof.

The wounds must have healed, however, because the Kent Messenger Group, which publishes Medway Today, now sponsors the Medway Stand at the club.

And so to our current ban by Hartlepool United, which has caused quite a stir nationally and regionally over the past few days.

It started a few weeks ago when the Hartlepool Mail was banned by the club for refusing to sign a commercial agreement which the paper considered to be unfair. There is growing tension between football clubs and the media over such issues as handing over the commercial rights to archives and demands for a share of newspaper advertising revenue.

Comply or be banned is the message – and it just isn’t the way to do business.

W h e n I was a s k e d by the editor of the Hartlepool Mail if I would help by supplying her paper with pictures, it would have been easy to refuse. The Mail is owned by a different company. I could have seen it as an opportunity to cash in.

But I supplied the pictures because there’s an important principle at stake and I believe newspapers should stick together in such circumstances.

That belief earned The Northern Echo a ban from Victoria Park, at the instigation of chairman Ken Hodcroft.

We didn’t rush to condemn the club in print, hoping common sense would prevail. Sports Editor Nick Loughlin and Chief Football Writer Paul Fraser, both born and bred Hartlepool lads, covered recent matches by buying tickets and standing on the terraces. Pictures were obtained from alternative sources. We kept quiet.

Meanwhile, other papers were warned not to give pictures to either of the banned papers otherwise, they’d be suitably punished. Laughably, radio stations were ordered not to give us quotes from the manager or the players. So we listened to the radio and made a few notes.

Then came the crunch. Hartlepool versus Premier League West Brom in the Carling Cup last Tuesday night. We couldn’t get pictures because the agency which supplies the nationals was only allowed a press pass on strict condition that the Echo and the Mail were frozen out. Sadly, the agency agreed to the condition.

So what were we to do? We wrestled with the dilemma for a while – though not stripped to the waist – and came up with the idea of replacing the missing pictures with a Roy Of The Roversstyle cartoon strip.

It was drawn with the mighty pen of our graphic artist Chris Moran and the speech bubbles were filled in by the lads on the sports desk as the game went on.

“Gordon Strachan’s in the crowd watching James Brown,” reported our man Fraser, on the phone from the Cyril Knowles stand. The reference to the Celtic manager was duly dropped in to the comic strip, along with Joel Porter’s goal and Antony Sweeney’s fierce shot on goal which knocked over a defender who got in the way.

It was a cup draw with a difference and it worked a treat. In fact, it received such positive feedback that we are now making a cartoon strip a regular feature of the Football supplement every Monday, starting next week.

But the serious point we wanted to make is that banning newspapers is not the way to build mutually-beneficial relationships. It is the public relations of the playground.

Football clubs and the media have to co-exist.

Of course, we benefit by selling newspapers – but the clubs get coverage they couldn’t buy.

And it is the local papers, not the nationals, which stick by clubs through thick and thin.

YES, clubs have their own websites but fans know they lack the independence of newspapers. Fans want to know what the local papers think – good and bad.

And the truth is that when the clubs need a favour – a picture from the archives for use in a programme or a poster – they are never turned down. It’s just that the line has to be drawn somewhere in terms of formal agreements.

Imagine if we demanded a cut of the shirt sponsor’s investment every time a photograph featuring the company’s logo appeared in the paper.

For the majority of the time, newspapers enjoy good working relationships with their local clubs. We help each other. But when disagreements occur, a ban is not the answer.

Tomorrow night, Hartlepool United FC play Leicester in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and, on Friday, a lawyer’s letter arrived on behalf of Hartlepool United, warning us that our reporters and photographers will get the brushoff again unless we print an admission that we were wrong and that we won’t do it again.

I’d already written twice to Hartlepool United, proposing a meeting to find a constructive way forward. It appears the proposal continues to fall on deaf ears. How very, very sad.

Maybe the Mayor of Hartlepool, Stuart Drummond – the man who famously stood for election in the costume of Hartlepool United mascot H’Angus The Monkey – will act as arbitrator.

Mr Mayor, your town needs you.