FOOTBALL clubs are a funny breed. I’ve been banned three times by football clubs during my journalism career.
One ban was imposed by Terry Venables during his time at Portsmouth Football Club a decade or so ago when he took exception to something that had been written in the paper. It meant we couldn’t interview the managers or players, or sit in the press box on match days. We were even excluded for a photo call of El Tel sat in a digger beginning the demolition of part of Fratton Park for a new stand.
To get round the ban, we hired a cherry picker which was parked on land outside of Fratton Park, put a photographer in the machine which lifted him 50 feet off the ground and hey presto we got the photograph. Fair play to Terry, he thought it was funny and pretty ingenious and was pleased to pose for photographs for us.
In recent times at Southampton on my last paper, I was described by the then chairman Rupert Lowe as “a muck-raking recidivist” in the match day programme. I had to look up what the word recidivist meant. And I’ve had a stand-up row with Gordon Strachan when he was in charge at St Mary’s.
So I’ve had my fair share of scuffles with football clubs as a journalist and an editor, none of which I’m particularly proud of but it comes with the territory.
With Swindon Town, it’s an interesting relationship. A few weeks after I joined the Adver I had meeting with club officials who were concerned over our coverage of fans’ protests over the on-off sale of the club. There was a feeling that we were to blame, guilty of stoking up the flames of resentment.
It was a good opportunity for me to explain how I see the relationship between a newspaper and a football club. It is, to be frank, one of being a critical friend and not a sycophantic, flag-waving close relation. It is a relationship which is supportive and at the same time is frank and honest. If a team is playing badly, if there are issues over the management of the club, if there is disenchantment among fans, we will reflect that. But we will also sing the successes too.
Yes, we must certainly want Swindon Town Football Club to do well. There’s nothing like a successful football team to instil a feel-good factor in a town. A successful Swindon Town would provide huge benefits to the area, including economic prosperity.
So what’s the point of this ramble? Well, I have to admit I was taken by surprise last week to receive a call from the club who were unhappy with the image on the front and back page of the Adver of captain Hasney Aljofree wearing a Superman outfit.
Hasney’s face had been superimposed onto the body of our superhero. It was meant as something light-hearted and reflected on a quote Hasney had given about “you can believe in Superman but it can only go so far” when talking about Swindon Town’s play-off ambitions.
The image provoked a lot of interest. It captured a mood, readers had a laugh – I know Hasney’s team-mates did – and was taken in the spirit that it was meant.
But the guys at the County Ground didn’t find it funny and thought it was offensive. They said that Hasney was upset by it – so upset, that he wore Superman pants a few days later which were displayed in all their glory in front of 6,483 fans after Billy Paynter’s goal in the 3-0 win over Cheltenham Town.
I’m honestly not sure how upset Hasney is and I will be speaking to him in a few weeks’ time when we meet at a trust meeting for the GWR Kids Appeal.
But the point I made to the football club is that like it or not, football is a circus. Besides being a sport it is the entertainment business, which is clearly why Hasney made the very public pants gesture on Tuesday night. It was a bit of fun, and even the referee sensibly understood the spirit in which the display was meant by not booking him.
Sometimes it is very easy to take ourselves too seriously. Sometimes we should be able to have a laugh at ourselves, and to be fair to Swindon Town they came back with an e-mail this week accepting the spirit in which that picture was published.

Thanks for the question about Rowan Atkinson and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on Sharia Law! Did you ever see the Rowan Atkinson TV sketch of him playing a clueless English vicar? He delivers an address before a group of colleagues and ends his talk by saying “God, because he is God, is mysterious. Live with it!” Classic.

All I would say about Dr Rowan Williams’ comments is I hate it when any public figure comes out with the line that the comments were taken out of context. How else can they be taken? To the Anglican Church, to the multi-cultural society we live in, they were extremely unhelpful comments in whatever context they were delivered.