Paper and Ink

I can't tell you exactly when I decided I wanted to be a journalist, but I can tell you why. It was because I was crap at football.

This was a conclusion I came too fairly early, probably around the age of seven or so. I was gangling, hopeless at just about all the basic skills except the ability to hit the ball very hard with my left foot. In hindsight, I should have stuck at it, as I can't have been any worse than some of the chancers who've been tried on the left wing for England over the last 20 years.

So, taking on a pragmatic attitude, I resolved to know more about football than anybody else at my school, which evolved into a desire to write about. The idea of being paid to be a footy journalist seemed pretty sound back then, so I ensured that every birthday and Christmas, I got at least one or two football stat books, which I'd pore over and have ensured that to this day I have an incredibly amount of useless information in my head. Outside the confines of a pub quiz, it's unlikely I'll ever need to know Alan Taylor scored both goals in West Ham's 2-0 victory over Fulham in the 1975 cup final.

What it did provide me with was something of a focus to get me through troubled teenage years. I needed to stick in at school to some degree, just so I could get to university to study Journalism. Somehow, despite a complete lack of interest in studying, I managed to get a place at a small university in the South of England.

Over three years, I learnt that I had neither the attitude not the application to crack the journo game. Even back then, the process of 'churnalism' was being taught in some form and the importance of toeing the line was emphasised. Don't be creative, don't be individual, do as you are told.

After graduation, I spent a long time on the dole applying for various jobs on papers and the like, to no joy. Eventually, I wound up in Manchester and while working the cricket ground job I wrote about recently, applied for a journalist job I saw in the local rag, thinking nothing of it. Instead, I got an interview, in which I got down to the last two. Bummer not getting it, but nice to get that close for the first time.

Some months later, out of work again and wondering what the fuck to do with my life, I was sat in the Castle pub, in Manchester's Northern Quarter, when the phone rang and I was asked to return to the aforementioned publishing company. I trooped up a couple of days later, if I remember right it was Valentine's Day, and talked to the publishing manager. I got the job.

The money was peanuts, it involved about three hours of bus journeys a day and there weren't many perks, but the point was that I was a fully paid up journalist. A professional writer, of sorts. It was the first of four major ambitions that I managed to fulfill between 2005-2007.

Seeing my name on a byline was a huge thrill, even if the stories were all on the business-to-business theme of the company's publications and extremely boring. But what made it worthwhile was that the production team (designers and editorial staff) were a great bunch of lads. It helped we were all, but one, United fans and it helped getting up at 6.30am knowing there might be a few laughs to have.

Over time, the crew was broken up due to frustrations with the directors and the chance to make a proper wage elsewhere. I hacked it for two years before my own frustrations spilled over. Despite the chance to take my manager's job and earn a bit more wedge, the workload seemed too much and I bailed.

I've been asked a few times whether I'll go back to the journo gig full-time, and it seems incredibly unlikely. I've been out of the game three years now, in an industry where contacts are everything. And I never really enjoyed the work anyways. The vast majority of hacks do batter farm work, endlessly knocking out passionless articles that are barely read. Much as this blog is probably read by about five people, it's giving me a much better sense of self-fulfillment.