Good managers know how to play the press and put their spin on events
IN another life at another newspaper, I knew a guy well connected to the goings-on inside Ibrox. He never told me anything, he wasn’t one for lifting the phone to offer tips, but if the Glasgow grapevine shook with gossip this was someone who knew for absolute definite what was true or not. It would take a whole three seconds into a call before knowing whether we had a back page or a pile of nonsense. One day a colleague was told that Ronald de Boer was out for the season. It was February. A great story and huge if true. At the time my newspaper and Rangers were going through a lover’s tiff so running this past the club was a no-no. So I went to my guy and, before I could put the rumour to him, he said; “I bet this is about De Boer. He’s f*****.” So that was that. We ran it as an exclusive. We did have two impeccable sources. There was only one problem. It wasn’t true. Not even a teensy bit. Oops. This was relayed to me the next morning before my first mug of wine. The punishment was to be moved from Celtic’s press conference to Rangers. I was told “Big Eck is waiting for you.”
Now the-then Rangers manager, and perhaps the next one, is a genuinely lovely bloke but he didn’t win 77 caps and 12 major trophies as a centre-half without being a bit hard. As I can’t fight sleep this was a concern.
Anyway, the press pack trooped into the press room at Murray Park and the first question was, of course, about De Boer and whether he was crocked or not. With superb timing, just as McLeish was telling everyone what a lot of nonsense the story was, the bold Ronald ran past the window looking like the fittest man to have ever drawn breath.
To be fair to McLeish, he was totally okay when I stayed behind to explain away my stupidity and we actually got on even better after that. He was smart enough to understand my job. Putting my hands up and admitting being wrong was enough for him.
The best managers, you see, know how to handle the press. They don’t get too upset at criticism, see it as part of their job and realise that any praise should be welcome because a kicking is never far away.
This is one of the many things which let down Mark Warburton. He was too thin-skinned. Even when things were going well the Englishman would bristle at even the most innocuous question. He and his coaching staff made more phone calls of complaints to hacks, and told a few they were not welcome at any press conference, than I have seen before in my time in this murky old business.
Brendan Rodgers is great with the press, especially those of us in the ink trade. Even when the knives were out with him at Liverpool he still fronted up and spoke to the media in an open manner. He got an easier ride because of that.
In Scottish football today, Lee Clark is always good for a line, as is Mark McGhee and Neil Lennon was put on this earth to help sell newspapers, which haven’t always been fair to the Hibernian manager. They are using us and we know it. They are given pages and pages of free publicity and the clever ones realise this is their opportunity to get their message out to supporters, to put their spin on events.
Those who believe in saying little are missing a trick. Nobody gets misquoted, despite what Warburton wrongly claimed several times, and we understand that it helps our game to put us much positivity out there as possible.
Mistakes will be made, as if that De Boer debacle was the only blot on my shambles of a career, but there needs to be more open lines of communication between clubs and the media.
The master of it all, of course, was Jock Stein who even invented press conferences. If Rangers had been the main story one day, you could be damn sure phones would be ringing in newsrooms across the country with Celtic’s all-powerful manager feeding the grateful journo a Jimmy Johnstone exclusive.
There was absolutely no way Rangers would lead the news agenda two days in a row.
Warburton isn’t shrewd enough to play the game. Neither was Tony Mowbray, Billy Davies, Tommy Craig to mention just a few.
Maybe I’m biased because it’s in my interest to be given more access to our clubs; however, when the greatest of them all, Mr Stein, knew how to play the press, then why can’t others not good enough even to live in his shadow not follow his example.