A regional daily found an unusual way around a football club’s ban on press photographers – by commissioning its own cartoons of Saturday’s match.

Southampton Football Club refused to accredit any photographers from the regional or national press, which hit the team’s first match against Plymouth Argyle.

But in a bid to provide readers with coverage of the first game of the season, Plymouth’s Herald commissioned cartoon drawings by city historian and newspaper contributor Chris Robinson.

The paper had previously criticised the photographer ban by the club in an editorial and said it would do what it could to overturn it.

However, the paper was actually able to obtain photos from the match after Plymouth Argyle released pictures taken by their official club photographer of the team’s winning goal, believing the ban was unfair.

Editor Bill Martin said: “It’s outrageous that a football club is blocking photographers from covering something which is of much interest and importance to many people.

“All credit to Argyle for putting the best interests of fans, their players and their sponsors first and publishing their own photographs.”

The paper has today published the cartoons from the game, showing the lengths it was prepared to go to in covering the match fully.

Southampton Football Club has come under widespread criticism after its ban on press photographers.

It said it would only allow photos taken by agency Digital South but it since emerged the company has refused to sign a deal with the club because it also disagreed with the move.

Comments

Journo (09/08/2010 11:02:06)
Genius from the Herald! Poor show from the Saints. I bet photographers are gutted that Southampton lost [!!]

Johnno (09/08/2010 11:23:58)
I’m a little confused about this story as I’ve just been to the Herald’s website to have a look at the cartoon’s in question and see that they appear to have match photos on the stories instead. If this (ridiculous) decision by Southampton FC is still in place, how come the Herald website now has the phots?

Isaac (09/08/2010 11:46:39)
@johnno It says in the story that Plymouth supplied photos to the Herald, but the cartoons were a back-up.

Pip (09/08/2010 11:53:47)
This is nothing new – newspapers often had cartoonists covering matches. Leo Baxendale did it for the Lancashire Daily Post before he went on to invent the Bash Street Kids in the Beano.
Football photos are usually so generic – and footballers so ugly – they aren’t worth using. Cartoons are actually better unless there’s a very specific incident, such as whether the ball crossed the goal line…

Dave (09/08/2010 12:13:02)
“Cartoons are actually better than pictures”? Pip – While this story is an unusual way round a serious problem, this is still the newspaper industry you clown. Put your comics away and grow up.

Richard Austin (10/08/2010 18:37:09)
This is another nail in the coffin of traditional press photography, It won’t be long before all clubs will adopt this policy (players image rights and all that) The media will be spoon fed only the pictures the club want the public to see…images of managers blowing a fuse on the touchline or players involved in fisty cuffs and anything controversial will be sensored….Freedom of the Press? Don’t make me laugh!