Throughout my time creating this project I wanted to dive into the basics of being a Club Journalist, asking and understanding what a simple working day is like for them.
One thing that was key to note, was that there is a lot of work that is done by Club Journalist’s with some of those claiming “you’re going to be doing more hours than you’d expect.”
Jonny Drake: Shrewsbury Town: (Club Journalist’s)
Starting off, I spoke with Shrewsbury’s Jonny Drake.
“As Shrewsbury Town’s Social Media Manager, I basically cover and post pretty much all of what goes on our social media. We have a guy who does all our video content, especially TikTok which I don’t touch, that’s all him.
“But the scheduling, plans, stories, photos I all do as my role as a Social Media Manager.”
“I also write for our matchday programme and I’d say I write and post about half of the stuff that is on our website.”
“At the club we’ve got about nine contributors who each write articles, you know, Women’s team, Foundation, Academy, a couple of supporters and history pieces, opposition analysis, that sort of stuff.”
“Essentially you manage it all yourself, you sort your own workload. At this level, you don’t just do one part of the job.”
“Like, for example, if you go to Man United and you’re doing a pre-match press conference. You’ll have one person asking the questions, then one person will film it. One person will check that it’s all okay in terms of audio.”
“So they’ll have about six, seven people involved. Whereas here you’ll just do it all, like one person will do it all, really.”
Burnley FC: Alex Waters (Content Producer)
“If you want to be in this profession you’re going to have to realise that you’re probably going to be doing more hours than you’d expect.”
“One day last week I ended up working 14 hours creating this piece of content. It was all one day of filming, it was incredible and a cool experience. But that’s the thing people wont realise.”
“When people watch the video they will be like that’s amazing but they wont know that someone’s spent 14 hours making that.”
Huddersfield Town: Max Marshall (Communications Executive)
In the later stages of creating the Club Journalist Hub, I got the opportunity to speak with Huddersfield Town’s Max Marshall who really shone a light on ever-changing content.
“I turn up on match days. Whether they’re home or away, and it’s my job as a Communications Executive to gain visual content.”
“So that’s video style content, short form reels, on Instagram.”
“That’s typically my job, so whether that’s before the game, gaining content and videos of the stadium, perhaps the players walking in, players warming up, things like that.”
“And even non-match-days, asking the players a question. For example, last week, with it being International Women’s Day, I created some content asking a question for when they came out for the warm-ups.”
“Social media is always changing and people are always wanting new content and different things.”
“And if I just keep posting warm-up videos, it’s not going to get as much engagement as me asking different questions to the players every week, because it’s not keeping up with the times and audiences get bored of that sort of content.”
“What’s good too, is that the more I create content with the players, they begin to know you more and the same with yourself, you know them more and. You sort of feel like more part of the team.”
“That’s one thing that I love about the job, you really feel part of the environment.”
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