From media ally to fierce competition: How Manchester City’s billions created a new world for local journalism
If ever there’s a club which symbolises the way the Premier League has become a global attractions, it’s the relentless rise of Manchester City. Not so long ago, permanently in the shadow of their rivals Manchester United, City are now the assumptive winners of the Premier League most years. Stuart Brennan is the chief football writer covering Manchester City at the MEN. Here he looks at how relationships have changed — but how the role of the local newsroom hasn’t:
When Manchester City were the butt of everybody’s jokes, a team that could only win “cups for cock-ups”, they were a dream to cover.
They needed the local paper, and the local paper needed them, because their loyal fans had stood beside them through the dark days — and that meant readers.
The Manchester Evening News has always tried to keep in mind the fact that it is those fans we are serving, not the club — and that made for a fractious relationship between paper and club hierarchy at times.
When Sheikh Mansour took over the club in 2008, everything changed.
Suddenly the club had ambitions to not only rival Manchester United, but to outstrip them and become a global football force.
While that is brilliant for a Manchester City writer, jetting off to Barcelona and Rome rather than foot-slogging to Doncaster and Gillingham like my predecessor, it presents its own challenges.
Not only did the new owners pour money into buying new players they revamped the entire operation — including the club’s own website.
Almost overnight, the MEN went from being City’s closest media ally to being seen as competitors.
Not only that, City’s new-found success meant that the national and international media began to take far more interest in the Blues.
The competition grew, and the access — to manager, players and board members — diminished.
It meant we had to work harder, to keep getting the stories, and remain the source which the fans — certainly the Manchester-based ones — trusted when it came to news about their beloved City.
It meant strengthening the position which every local newspaper SHOULD have when it comes to covering their local football club.
We did not want to emulate the sterile, Pravda-style stance of the official club website, but nor did we want to join in the excess and fly-by-night nature of some of the national media coverage.
We have tried to position ourselves between those two extremes, never losing sight of who we are here to serve — the fans.
So, while we are not afraid to tackle the club over matters of supporter concern off the field, and not afraid to criticise when things are poor on the field, that criticism always has to be measured and in context.
City respect what we do, even if they don’t always like it, and our sources at the club use us to get out messages which correct some of the wilder stories which are spun.
We also — when merited — heartily defend the club against some of the unfair or unbalanced criticisms they get.
That not only helps our relationship with the club to flourish, it also gets the support of the fans, who — understandably — think the owners are the best thing that ever happened to Manchester City.
And that is why, even with media competition from all over the planet, the MEN remains a trusted and pertinent source of news about Manchester City.
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