Not too long ago – we’re talking barely a decade – United would have flown to Dublin to play a pre-season friendly and, for most fans, news of the result would have been gleaned from the following morning’s newspaper.
Maybe. Even then the match is likely to have yielded just a few column inches. It’s only a friendly, after all.
Fast-forward to 2010 and now, at roughly the same time of the morning you’d have sat down to read your newspaper 10 years ago, you’ve probably already watched the full 90 minutes (live on MUTV or MUTV Online), read the match report and digested the players' post-match reaction.
At least. No doubt some of you have also discussed the match on internet forums like Talking Reds, watched snippets of highlights on online video-sharing sites and sifted through mountains of tweets and status updates from fans who were inside the Aviva Stadium last night.
Technology is amazing. But it was also responsible for more than half my hand luggage on yesterday’s flights to and from Dublin. In my bag I carried a netbook (Samsung N130), a video camera (FlipMino HD), a still camera (Fuji FinePix Z20), a voice recorder (Olympus DS-30), a portable 3G modem (Vodafone), a smart phone (iPhone 3G), a digital watch (Casio F-91W), a 3m Ethernet cable (Category 5), a FireWire cable (standard issue with the Fuji FinePix Z20), and a pair of headphones (Sennheiser CX-299). I also took a notebook (Moleskine mini) and a pen (Bic), although I hardly used either.
I'd never really paused to think about how heavily I rely on technology in this job until I was covering the opening ceremony of the Manchester United Premier Cup on Tuesday. Offered an on-the-spot interview with Reds skipper Gary Neville, I sat down at a table and began emptying my pockets in search of my voice recorder. Out came the video camera, a still camera, my mobile phone, the headphones... but no voice recorder. Where was it? Gary couldn’t help but laugh. Me, I was just yearning for a return to the days when shorthand skills and a notepad were all the tools any journalist needed to survive.
I evenutally found what I was looking for and committed Gary’s words of wisdom to tape. Well, I say tape, but what I really mean is a .wav audio file available for electronic export. The transcript then took place (with my netbook perched on the tray table, a clear contravention of cabin-crew instructions) as the team plane taxied at Manchester airport on Wednesday morning. All between live blog updates for the website.
Life was even more chaotic an hour earlier when I’d set up a makeshift desk at the airport’s check-in counter. Such is the demand for up-to-the-minute information. As the players arrived for the flight to Dublin I took pictures and video and uploaded these to the blog thanks to the portable 3G modem. I was also jotting down names in my notebook so I could ring through the travelling squad to the office for immediate publication.
After landing in Dublin some of my colleagues had time for a spot of cards on the way to the hotel. Not me. We’d landed, which meant updating the blog to keep that ticking over. Meanwhile, my iPhone buzzed to notify me of a new text message: it was my colleague Steve Bartram, letting me know how the young Reds fared against Barcelona in the Manchester United Premier Cup. Vital information, as it turned out, because Sir Alex asked me for an update about 15 minutes later. That was just after I’d captured pictures of him signing autographs for local fans, and subsequently uploaded and published them on the website.
I could go on, but I’m sure you understand my point by now. There’s a lot to do these days as a journalist. And quickly. The audience demands it. And thanks to all the technology at our disposal we just about scrape by, even if sometimes our lives might actually be easier without it all. But then you, dear readers, wouldn’t reap the rewards.
This morning, all I ask is that while you're poring over the reaction to last night's emphatic 7-1 win in Dublin, spare a thought for the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into those news stories, photographs and videos. Football journalists love their jobs... but we are forced to carry a lot of baggage. Literally. WIthout it, we'd see a return to the days when all a journalist produced from a pre-season friendly was a match report, published hours after the final whistle. And nobody wants that.
Contributed by Nick Coppack / Manchester United's Official Fanzone Blog
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