Challenges facing a progamme editor
By Tim Lees, Programme Editor, Atherton LR
For the last 10 years or so I’ve been Atherton LR’s programme editor. In common with most clubs in our league, that doesn’t just mean I edit the programme. It means I write it, print it, assemble it and staple it.
I’ve had a great time at the club because, while from the outside it may seem nothing much has happened at Crilly Park, in that time the club has been relegated, promoted, won a number of local cup competitions at Bolton Wanderers Reebok Stadium, a couple of relegation dogfights, twice seen virtually the entire team walk out in under two weeks, twelve managers come and go and all sorts of highs and lows on and off the pitch.
Nearing the end of my time as programme editor, the hardest thing for me is to avoid getting slack, thinking I’ve virtually finished so it doesn’t matter any more. Something I once heard someone say at one of our member clubs annoyed me quite a bit. I was told that they only got a few people in so it wasn’t worth producing a proper programme.
I felt that every person who had paid to get into the ground and bought a programme should be treated with respect and that a programme should be written as if a thousand people were going to buy it, even if only a couple of dozen copies were sold. It’s quite insulting to those who have gone to the time, trouble and expense of turning up at a match to be effectively told they’re not worth the effort.
So, despite various printer problems throughout December, I try to make sure that if someone buys a programme which I’ve produced or been involved with, they don’t think they’ve wasted their money. I no longer do the 80 page programme that I did a few years ago, but I hope people find enough reading material to make it worth while.
I’m pretty certain that, apart from a few local cup matches, LR have had a programme for every league and cup match since the 1998/99 season when I became involved. There was one game against Ramsbottom back in 1999/00 season when I was going away, so wrote the programme and left everything ready to be printed by someone else at the club.
Of course, relying on other people opens up a whole new subject for programme editors, and in this case the programme wasn’t printed as everyone either forgot or assumed someone else was doing it. I printed a few off late and handed them out to anyone who asked.
Ah yes, programme contributors! A real boon or a real pain? Discuss! I’ve been very lucky over the past couple of seasons with having two people contributing to the programme on a regular basis, always on time and never letting me down. Jeff Gorse is the programme editor for Leigh Miners Rugby Club and fancied stretching his wings, and for almost two seasons has provided LR with four pages on the opposition. On more than one occasion people from our visiting clubs have commented that they’ve learned something about their own side from Jeff’s work.
Most people will know our match reporter Eddie Taylor. Eddie is a supporter that any club would love to have and he is the proud owner of, as far as I’m aware, the only rattle used by a supporter anywhere in the North West. While being a keen LR supporter, he still manages to stand back and be objective about a game, something which I’ve never quite managed.
A few others from the club have contributed over the years without many problems, but I learned very early on not to rely on anyone else. At first, when promised articles didn’t arrive, or the person writing them thought it was ok to hand them over on the morning of the match, I used to get stressed about it but then decided to have a cut off time and kept emergency articles on the computer so if something expected didn’t turn up by the cut off time, I had something ready to go in its place.
Printer problems! Some clubs have companies print and assemble their programmes, but since 1997 LR have had their own printer. We’re on the third machine now and it’s been a huge benefit and at times a nightmare. If a printer is going to break down, it will do it on the one week when I’m late doing the programme, or over a holiday period when there’s no one to call out.
I have three printers at home, two of my own and the clubs, which does give some flexibility if I need to print something and one of them runs out of ink. Each takes a different sized ink cartridge or toner, but on the Wednesday before LR played AFC Fylde, all three managed to run out of ink on the same day! It’s hard to believe how or why.
On the other hand, it does mean that a programme can be printed when and how I want. A programme for Boxing Day can be left till Christmas Eve, one for Saturday can have the final pages printed on a Friday and if I was really keen, a programme for a Tuesday night could include any results from the Monday (though that’s really not likely to happen).
Having their own printer also means the club can use it for other purposes, printing posters, flyers, lottery sheets or anything else with nothing more than the cost of paper and ink. Printer prices have come down now to a more acceptable level - £345 for am office standard machine of a decent make.
Assembling programmes is a job which most people hate. I saw a question on one of the many non league forums a while ago from someone asking if there was a better way to assemble programmes than standing there with all the sheets laid out in a row taking one off each pile to assemble each programme.
The answer, not surprisingly, was no. I used to get a few people involved in assembling the programme at the club, but put a stop to that after a couple of seasons. In part, I persuaded the club to let me have the printer at home so I could print sheets off as and when I wanted and so rather than having to trail up to the club and back each time to assemble them, it was just easier as I had the sheets at home anyway, to assemble them there.
The 50 minute round trip to the club and back was enough time for me to do the job at home anyway and save petrol. That also sorted out the other problem. Whenever there was a group of people putting the programmes together, there was always at least one pile where there were one or two sheets left over, or one or two sheets short.
They always claimed I hadn’t printed enough, or printed too many. Strange though, that since I’ve been doing them myself at home, it’s never happened. I don’t mind doing it, I put something on to listen to and don’t really notice the work. The recent Winsford programme was assembled to a CD of the original 1938 Orson Wells American radio version of the “War of the Worlds” that supposedly caused mass panic back in 1938.
One thing I’ve never quite understood is when people say to me “have you seen in the programme? It says…….” Er, yes - I wrote it! On the other hand, sometimes someone points something out in the programme and asks me about it and laughs when I say I don’t know because I never read the programme. It’s true though. I sit and type, or copy and paste and don’t have the time to read the entire programme back before printing and assembling.
My fingers work away and I know what I mean to say. Most of the time it comes out fine, but on odd occasions it doesn’t. I was pleased when a home match against St Helens was called off earlier this season as I had announced in the programme that we were playing St Helens Ypwm. My right hand just missed the correct keys on the keyboard by one.
Something which some enthusiastic programme editors haven’t yet learned is that when someone reads text in a programme, they don’t always know the “tone of voice” being used. I found that out early on when I put a couple of things in the programme, meant as a bit of fun and found that people were a bit upset about it, having taken it seriously.
After that I tried hard to avoid that situation. I still see it sometimes though in programmes and even online on forums. When you talk to someone you can tell by the expression on their face, the body language or even because of the situation that it’s a joke but it’s not always possible to tell with the written word. One club I went to with LR had in their programme that they were glad we were there because LR were always good for a thrashing. Lovely! Nice to be made welcome.
Clitheroe supporters weren’t happy a few years ago when they went to play a match while still in our league, to find a piece in the programme running down their ground. One would assume that no one would be daft enough to write an article insulting their opponents in the programme, both must have been an attempt at humour but both were taken badly. While I don’t think it happens very often, clubs can be fined if inappropriate material appears in their programme, it happened at LR back in the early 90’s.
Things are much easier now for the programme editor with the quantity of information available on the internet. The League’s newsletter now arrives through email over the weekend so can be included in midweek programmes, rather than wait for it to arrive in the post and have to use an out of date one on a Tuesday night.
Most clubs have websites where information about the club or a squad can be taken if needed and the websites of local newspapers along with various non league websites are full of information. The days of using a typewriter, or even hand writing a programme (which a couple of our clubs did in the 1980’s) are long gone. At one time if an editor wanted extra large text, they’d buy one of those rigid plastic sheets from a stationers with the letters of the alphabet cut out of it and use a marker pen with the template to get bold text.
One of the strangest experiences was doing a programme for Clitheroe FC for a while. I knew nothing about the club, other than what most people would know about another team in their league, but through fairly complicated circumstances ended up doing their programme for a while.
It turned out not to be too hard. Four or five people at the club sent me the match reports, statistics and all the other information I needed and even though I didn’t go to see them play, it was pretty much the same as doing Atherton’s programme. The only difference I found was the lack of intimacy.
Because I didn’t know the club or the people involved, the programme couldn’t contain the gossip, insider snippets, or anything about the regulars at the club (officials or supporters) that makes a programme more than just a little magazine of straight information.
Atherton LR have been lucky over the years to have people like Brian Seddon, David Jackson, John Bullen and Peter Jones producing good programmes and there’s probably only been a couple of seasons in the last 25 when things went awry. Unfortunately though, not all clubs have someone with the time and enthusiasm to produce a decent programme, so some matches there is nothing while others may just be the League’s newsletter with the two squads.
As with all jobs at member clubs, we rely on volunteers to do everything and if no one comes forward to produce the programme then it’s just another job to add to the list for their secretary, manager or chairman. It’s easy to criticise from the outside without knowing the full story, though understandable at times when supporters might pay £1 for a 40 page programme one week and £1 for 8 pages the next.
The lack of a programme can have a minor setback for a club as well. Bored one Monday night I went along to see another member club play a League game and there was no programme that night. While I was chatting to the gateman someone arrived, found out there was no programme and refused to come in, saying he’d come back another day when there was a programme.
The hardest part of the job was right back at the start. Initially I had help from a gentleman called Chris Green, these days more likely to be found watching Atherton Collieries. While I had plenty of computer experience using older machines, Dragon 32, Spectrum, BBC etc, I’d never owned a PC so would have had no idea how to produce programme pages.
For almost two years he turned the information I gave him into a well presented programme and when he decided to move on, he bought a new computer and let me have his old one. He also gave me instructions on the basics of using Publisher to do the programme.
Once I’d got it figured out and settled on certain layouts for each page, the job became just one of collating information as all the layouts remained the same for each programme. I’d change them over the summer while there was no pressure, but by the time the seasons started all the basic layouts were once again in place. I also spent time in the summer preparing for the next season.
By the time of the first match, I would have a four page club history of each member club and any cup opponents which I knew about, all stored on the computer ready, along with 25 jokes pages, 25 quizzes, 25 “we’ve met before” articles.. and so on. It made life so much easier.
While I’ve really enjoyed my time at LR, I’m looking forward to a break now. I may go back to it at some point in the future but I am looking forward to a much needed break.
The club have had a couple of people expressing interest in taking over the job, but nothing definite has been arranged yet, so we’re still open to anyone who might like to take over the programme. They’d get any and all help they need to get started and, from my experience over the last ten years, I can promise it won’t be a dull time!
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