Having missed Paul Baxter's call(while picking up a Chinese take away), he's just called me back and fair play to him, he spoke to me for almost an hour. He seems a decent enough bloke, he argued some points with me, he accepted others.
Firstly, with regard to the rugby violence/football violence reporting, he said that they just reported what they knew of. He said they don't have reporters outside the ground, so unless it kicks off inside the ground they depended on the police to give them reports of what had happened. He basically suggested that the police always report football violence to them, but not always the trouble at a rugby game. He also stressed that the reporting about the Millwall game was from the news desk, not from the sports desk and that they'd got a lot of grief for something in which they'd had no involvement. He acknowledged that the reports ahead and immediately after the Millwall game were unhelpful and had damaged the reputation of the paper, something he regretted.
With regard to the Malet Lambert school competition win, he said that he couldn't justify sending a reporter to the game, but that their youth football reporting was a good as any local paper in the country. They did apparently run a full page write up on the game, along with photo's, but they put non of it online(I suggested that they should have done).
With regard to Nick Wood's flippant comments about the failure to send anyone to the game on Blunderside last night, he said it was regrettable and he'd have a word. He also said that Wood never wanted anyone to know he was a Leeds fan and was most upset when Gwylim Lloyd revealed it on Blunderside. Despite being a Leeds fan, he doesn't want City to lose games and is not in any way anti-City. I suggested he should put more effort into getting that across to his readers.
He said that the lack of access at the club is a major problem for them, he raised this with Adam at the start of the season, but thinks he probably messed up the timing, as Adam had so much else on his plate at the time. Relations between the Mail and Adam got a bit strained during the Bullard saga, which he thinks hasn't helped, but he thinks they're getting over that now. He said there had been a sea change after Brownie had left, with everything that was going on neither Pearson was keen on talking to them, which was completely different to Brownie, who'd talk to them about any old bollocks. He says that now things have calmed down and the results have improved, Nigel has been far more easy going, but he has little time for the media in general. He only cares about winning football matches, he sees everything else as fluff.
He appreciates the fact that City fans don't like the fact that there's no City fan on the staff, he's asked me if there's anyone I know who might like to contribute to the paper to rectify this, I didn't volunteer, though I have suggested someone else who I think could do a decent job.
With regard to the suggestion that we should have started another 'Dare to Dream' campaign, he said it had been discussed, if we beat Boro and get any sort of result against DQPR, then it will be front page and the campaign will start in earnest.
All in all, he was very decent, he listened to all my complaints, agreed with some and disputed others, but he accepts there's more the paper can do to improve the way it's perceived by City fans.
