Latest / In Sport with James Gordon Podcast / Running Your Club Like a Publisher: Media Strategy in Modern Semi-Pro Sport

Transcript

Running Your Club Like a Publisher: Media Strategy in Modern Semi-Pro Sport · In Sport with James Gordon Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to In Sport, the podcast for marketers and decision makers in semi-pro sports.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a show about what actually works in boardrooms,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: sponsor meetings, the media and on match day.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's kick off.
• 0:09
  [music]
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to In Sport,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host Neil Barraclough and each week we dive into the practical side
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: of running,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: growing and promoting sports clubs,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: especially in the semi-pro and grassroots space where resources are tight
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: and every decision really matters.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Each episode I'm joined by our resident expert James Gordon,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: James' business,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: JDG Media,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: is built on helping clubs,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: athletes and organisations get better at three things that decide their future,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: media management, commercial growth and fan experience.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the first of those media management that we're going to be talking about today.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: James, the media landscape over the last 10 or 15 years has changed dramatically.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen journalists laid off in their droves, an increasing concentration of media coverage.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Purely on maybe a handful of Premier League games and lots
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: of other sports either ignored or seeing their profile in
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: the media dramatically reduced.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: What does that mean for clubs these days?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are clubs increasingly having to take up the mantle of being a publication in their own right?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's good and bad outcomes for clubs.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: The good one is that they can clearly control the narrative, if you like.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: these days you've got Certainly the bigger clubs have got teams
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: of people producing content,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: whether it be player interviews,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: even the press conference type stuff,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: and producing stuff that was equally as good as if
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: a bona fide journalist had done it 20 years ago.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's good in that sense that the clubs get to control what puts out.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: They can make it a bit more polished.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're not at risk of...
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: A journalist taking it in a different way.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: the bad thing is that clubs aren't necessarily held to account.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They can maybe get away with things that maybe they wouldn't have been able
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: to do 15,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years ago, which then leads to maybe issues that perhaps wouldn't have happened.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is that particularly prevalent at kind of semi-pro level,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: I guess,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: where there's maybe a tendency to have less scrutiny to begin with and then
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: that may have almost kind of dropped to zero?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't necessarily say semi-pro.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think even professional clubs,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't want it to make it all about financials,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: but I've seen ownerships in basketball, a good one.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's football league clubs that have had problems.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe had there been more dedicated,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: what we would call traditional journalism,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: scrutinizing them clubs, maybe they wouldn't have got.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the thing is, it's almost...
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: maybe outside of football,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: certainly in the minority ones,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: people can get away with stuff because no one's reporting on it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite easy to dip under the radar and not do certain things.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's, and don't get me wrong, it might have always happened in the pack.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there's less pressure on clubs if they've not got someone on
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: the outside asking questions or knocking on the door or do you know what I mean?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's both good and bad for the club because it's good because they can get away
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: with certain things or some bad issues they have don't get escalated as much
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: as they might have been in the past.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's bad for clubs as a...
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean, if anything, for fans, obviously, clubs?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Probably 90% of the time,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: clubs doing the content themselves is no different,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: or perhaps in some ways even better than it was when journalists
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: or whoever was doing it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Clearly if you work at a club,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know the players better, you know what's going on more.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: if you're good at your job,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: you can sit down and do an interview with whoever in the club and put it out
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: and it's a nice piece of content.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that just as well if you're a club journalist as if you were a newspaper journalist.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think where you lack,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: where you lose is that little 10%,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: them little 10% is where it's like such a player's been missing for a few games,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: what's happening with him?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where maybe something's happening that the club don't want to tell you about,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: they're not going to tell you about.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if there's a journalist there, he might ask that question or find that out.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: One I always find it interesting, clubs do press conferences, don't they?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, me and you both worked in rugby.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fewer and fewer people clearly go to press conferences now and the clubs put them out sometimes.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some clubs put them out every week, you know, they'll put the press conference out.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens when there's no press available to go to the press conferences anymore?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Who's asking the questions?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The only people asking the questions are people at the club and they're not going
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: to ask necessarily the difficult questions.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the balance that I think you lose that, Why do them press conferences exist?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: They existed to give the journalists an opportunity to speak to the players.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if the journalism side of it can't be sustained anymore,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: you're basically just left with a club interview with a manager
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: that potentially doesn't ask them
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: difficult questions.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Clubs are using those press conferences as a form of free content.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of eating itself, isn't it?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because you might have,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: and certainly,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know, Premier League football are never going to have any problems, are they?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: let's say basketball,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: we're doing a big announcement and they're having a press conference somewhere
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: and it's like, well,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: what publications are going to have a journalist spare for an hour or two to go?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then an hour or two either side to travel.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then an hour or two to write, whatever it is.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a full day's work doing a press conference.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: None of these publications have got the money to pay it,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: but it's even worse if then the source of
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: the press conference is just putting it out there anyway.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the story that you would have got as a journalist that might have sold papers
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: or got you some clicks is completely diluted because the club or
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: the body that's announced it has already put it out there.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: amongst all of this, though,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: there is a,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: it appears to be a trend that Clubs,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: more than traditional publications now,
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: are more wedded to the traditional structure of sports news.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: The first sentence of the article, that will tell you the story.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: So-and-so has signed a six-year contract with us today.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Publications though, a lot of publications I see now seem to be doing the opposite of that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a fair comment?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was having a conversation with someone the other week.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The inverted period has almost gone upside down from where we were.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: The idea was that the intro got people hooked into the story,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: whereas now,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: such is the desperation for clicks and for ad revenue,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: et cetera, that it's now the other way.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You won't believe who Such a body's signed,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: or you won't believe what this coach said about this,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: and you have to read through a load of guff before...
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: But that's in the third-party publications, isn't it?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: The club publications are much more... Yeah,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: the clubs,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: ultimately,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the club news stuff is like what a press release was, wasn't it, really?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: The club, effectively, what you've now got is...
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than a club issuing a press release and then
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: the press release being rewritten in the inverted pyramid method for a newspaper,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: you've now just got,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: clubs are just putting the press release out themselves via their own channels in
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: that format where it's, here's the news, here's a little bit more,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So as someone who deals with the media on behalf of a club and,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: as someone who's been in the industry for decades,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: are there Any potential pitfalls here for the clubs in making wrong assumptions?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking a lot about,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: we'll put something on social media and therefore everyone will see it.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Not every fan is going to be on social media or going to be regularly checking it.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a balance to be struck between assuming that a tweet or
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: a Facebook post is going to do the job?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think clubs miss a massive trick in not turning a lot of this social content into...
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hard copy,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: which I guess in our day would have been the newspaper,
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: but for me now is on the website.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And people say, well, who goes on websites?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's on Facebook.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you make a sign in today or if you put an announcement on Facebook,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: yeah, it's there on Facebook.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get your attention this week or the few days if you're lucky.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to find it, again, it's difficult to find it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's millions, millions of posts on Facebook every day.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You never know at what point Facebook are going to turn things off,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: where if you write that on your website,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: you've got a permanent reference point for that article.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're in control of it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And not just for things like signings, but things for best practice.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing a sponsorship announcement or a sponsorship post,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: it's like, well, we can link back to that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: To another sponsor is an example of what we did really well where it's a lot harder
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: to find a Facebook post or a tweet or whatever.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that I think clubs miss a trick on is not transcribing videos and interviews.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll see lots of clubs chuck out a video with a coach or a manager, but they never write.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: We always do that with our clients.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: We'll always produce a written Version of that same interview.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And do you do that for accessibility reasons or do you do that for SEO reasons
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: or is it a combination of both?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a combination of a few things.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Accessibility is one, but a bit more than that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: As an individual, my personal preference is I can read a lot quicker than I can watch.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I could skim read a five minute interview with a manager fairly quickly,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: but I have to sit through the whole five minutes to watch it normally.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was a motivation.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you a headline.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you some,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: it's like if a coach says something and all you've got it tagged up as is post-match
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: after we've played the dog and duck.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's your only search reference for that video.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if, yeah,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: the article is about,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: he might have said something about a player who'd done really well,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: or he might have said something about an incident that happened.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can get that written down and as a reference point,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: like say on,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: which might be good for SEO,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: it's there on your website and it just gives you that extra bit of,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I almost think it's another way of selling it as well because if I go on
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: that article and I read through it and there's some quotes in there,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: that might maybe watch it, watch the whole thing just to see how it went.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas now,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see stuff,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sitting through five or six minutes of that because I might sit through five
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: or six minutes, you might not say anything Of any interest?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because could you imagine how many minutes,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: if you wanted to listen to 10 manager interviews, it'd take you an hour.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I could click on 10 website stories in five minutes and decide
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's worth reading or whether there's a, there's a highlight on it or...
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a kind of laziness issue?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a staffing issue?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just a lack of thought issue?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure about laziness,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: but I definitely think it's a lack of thought or a lack of awareness.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: My background is obviously very much in online publishing in terms of running
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: a website, and you're always looking for content.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You always wanted articles in.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: The more articles, the better.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always thinking of,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always looking at,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: not volume,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: because you still want the quality,
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: but it's like,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: ultimately,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: if you If that becomes a website article, that then makes your website look fresher.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone comes on wanting to buy a ticket or wanting to buy it from the shop,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: there's something that's a bit more up to date.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you're just slinging it out on YouTube or on social media,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying not do that as well, but at least you've then got it on the website.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe it's just a case of people don't think about it
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: because they just think, oh, we're doing that for YouTube.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about the interview.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've done the interview.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just get it
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: out there.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a far less onerous task
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: than it used to be, isn't it?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you could get AI transcriptions done as your written copy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it might just be a case of that's the way the world's changing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people don't want the written article,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: but I still think there's enough written articles going round.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So why wouldn't the clubs?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an easy way to make your website look fresher.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an easy way to get that engagement from fans who, you know, different types of fans.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like you say, there'll be fans who don't go on YouTube or don't go on social media.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's becoming notoriously hard to watch things if you're not registered
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: on them platforms as well.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: like years ago,
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: you could probably dig out a tweet,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: couldn't you, if you weren't logged in, whereas now you've got no chance.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I always think that the interviews is less of a reference point because,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: of course, what a manager says this week is dead next week in many ways.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: But for things like signings and stuff like that, they should 100% be going on as web pieces.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I see no reason why,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: if you're doing an interview,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: that you shouldn't have like a...
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you don't want to give the whole game away,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: write it in a way where there's enough to tease people into watching the full thing.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're a director of media and commercial at Warrington Town.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe this doesn't happen at Warrington.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we're talking about a situation somewhere else,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: but let's say you take on A new graduate,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: first job that comes into your media department at the sports club.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: What are the things that you think are key to teach them?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to be consistent.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, you've, you've got to be, you've got to be consistent.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: obviously at non-league,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: you're relying on volunteers a lot of the time,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: but it's like,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: there's no point if you're going to be there one week and not the next,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: then there's, there's no point.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: you've got to be committed to it and you've got to be consistent with your output.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: there's probably a million and one ideas That everyone's got,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: but you've got to do them in a sustainable way.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never been a massive fan of doing stuff one week and then not doing it the next.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, if you're going to do something, it needs to be done week in, week out.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you know, what's
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: the point?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've just got to crack on, haven't you?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'd much rather someone come in,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: be consistent and just steadily raise their bar over a period of time than come up
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: with something Amazing that goes viral.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I get that where social media is now is that everyone's just making
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: as much noise as they possibly can in a desperate hope that it works for them
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: or something sticks and it's successful.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what's the underlying purpose of doing what you're doing?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately,
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: if you're on a media team of a club or a marketing team of a club,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: you're trying to grow the club,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: you're trying to grow awareness of the club,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: you're trying to We talk about the revenue streams in another podcast,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: but you're trying to help that club sell more tickets,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: sell more shirts, sell more sponsorship.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is doing a Wadmin post,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: as we call them, where I see loads of clubs doing this banter between each other.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really growing your channel or your club to satisfy people?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those other objectives.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Someone can correct me with evidence of their own, but I'm not sure that it does.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it's self-indulgent.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about you.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the club.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about the internal dynamics.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: How much buy-in or otherwise should you get from coaches, managers, players?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: I've never tried to prep,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: even working on the club side,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I've never really tried to prep someone to say certain things or
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: to not say certain things.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: I would always try and ask them
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way as I would if I was an external journalist,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: but that's because I think that's because my mindset,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I probably haven't got a mindset of a journalist as such.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: My mindset comes at it from the fan perspective.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always thinking, well, what would a fan want to ask or what would a fan want to know?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the trouble you've got with the club stuff is you're not always going
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: to get people like that.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So like you say, sometimes it's going to become A bit boring, a bit mundane, a bit same, same.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a responsibility of the club media people to make sure
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: that certain issues are buried or not buried, but dealt
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: with in the right manner.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: clearly if there's something going on with a player off the field,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: clearly that shouldn't be the first question in the interview,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: but you've got to try and deal with it in a way
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: that Both satisfies what I was saying about what the fan wants to ask,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: but also protects the club from any issue that they don't want to come out.
• 17:32
  [music]
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thanks for that, James.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now we've come to your favourite part of the show, Smithy Six.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you want to go this week?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: You can either choose from rugby, cricket or tennis.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: What are we calling rugby, Neil?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's what you'd call proper rugby.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, right.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say rugby doesn't exist.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Rugby league, tennis or cricket.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go rugby league then to get it out of the way.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the most niche of them all.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is the one now.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is where everyone's going to turn off, you mean?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: But this is the one where I think you can show your nerdery.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure about that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: In 2007,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: back when you were just a young lad,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: witness Vikings,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: your team,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: saw no pressure at all, beat Whitehaven 54-6 to win the Northern Royal Cup.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Can you name the six players who started in the pack that day?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: In the pack?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's an interesting story about this
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: before we get going.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hang on, you're playing for time.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: But an interesting story before, I never actually went to the final.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh!
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and you know that I was, well, and I still am prolific.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I never went,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm not thinking,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: while I'm telling you this,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: but I was on,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was only,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was 18, and I was, I was in Ironhapa, Cyprus on holiday, right?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Raving it up.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not, you know me, not so much raving it up.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And, um, nobody I went to an holiday with was interested in rugby.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, um,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: We was at a water park and it was like, right,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to come,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm coming back to watch the rugby, you know, it was on Sky or whatever.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember getting back and it was half time and it flashed up,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: they were winning 30-0 or something like that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I might as well stay at the water park.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I never used to, I used to miss like one game.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I went on a run where I missed one or two games a year for,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Three or four years and then I went on a run
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: where I think
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I did 102 consecutive matches.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that year, the game I missed was this one.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll try my best.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you've got one minute starting now.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Smith.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Bob Bezic.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, moves forward.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Leader round.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, second round.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: 3 out of 3 so far.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Was Mick Cassidy still going then or not?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: He was, prop.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Was he?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Mick Cassidy was playing at prop, was he?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: 2 to 5.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oliver Wilkes.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Over prop.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So who's your last second round?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jordan James.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's on the bench.
• 20:17
  [music]
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mick Cassidy was playing at prop.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Witness had Joel Tompkins that year, but I think it was late.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's that, that year?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was later in the season.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Five seconds.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron, no, it wasn't Aaron Summers, because he was a pro.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh!
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Second week running, he's got five out of the Smithy Six.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Summers was on the bench.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Give me a bit, I won't take it as a win, but let me see if I can think.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um...
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid your missing second rower was Paul... Paul Noon.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's great about that as well,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: is that Paul Noon taught,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: when he was at Warrington, he used to do
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: our rugby at school when I was a kid.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he obviously made a big impression on you.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, never mind.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Must do better.
• 21:21
  [music]
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us again for this latest episode of In Sport.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you've enjoyed the show,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: please take a second to give us a like on your podcast platform or share it
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: on social media.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to find out more about James Gordon,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: check out his website www.jdgmedia.com or find him on just
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: about every major social platform with the handle jdgmedia.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Next time we'll be discussing all things digital ticketing.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Join us then.