The full list of 57 journalists to have joined new football website The Athletic UK has been revealed as the US-owned site goes live today.
HTFP has previously reported a number of departures from regional sportsdesks over the summer, although none of those leaving have officially been unveiled as Athletic hires until this morning.
All 20 current Premier League clubs will have dedicated reporters, with some of them having two, as well as five clubs currently in the Championship – Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, West Bromwich Albion, Derby County and Nottingham Forest.
Glasgow clubs Celtic and Rangers will also have dedicated coverage.
A full story on the launch of The Athletic UK can be found here.
The full list of dedicated reporters, and the clubs they will be covering, is as follows:
Arsenal – James McNicholas and Amy Lawrence
Aston Villa – Gregg Evans
AFC Bournemouth – Peter Rutzler
Brighton & Hove Albion – Andy Naylor
Burnley – Andy Jones
Chelsea – Liam Twomey
Crystal Palace – Matt Woosnam
Everton – Patrick Boyland and Greg O’Keeffe, pictured
Leicester City – Rob Tanner
Liverpool – James Pearce and Simon Hughes
Manchester City – Sam Lee
Manchester United – Andy Mitten and Laurie Whitwell
Newcastle United – Chris Waugh
Norwich City – Michael Bailey
Sheffield United – Richard Sutcliffe
Southampton – Carl Anka
Tottenham Hotspur – Charlie Eccleshare
Watford – Adam Leventhal
West Ham United – Roshane Thomas
Wolverhampton Wanderers – Tim Spiers
Derby County – Ryan Conway
Leeds United – Phil Hay
Nottingham Forest – Paul Taylor
Sheffield Wednesday – Nancy Frostick
West Bromwich Albion – Steve Madeley
Celtic – Kieran Devlin
Rangers – Jordan Campbell
In addition, Raphael Honigstein will cover clubs playing in the German Bundesliga.
A number of journalists have also been appointed with briefs not related to specific clubs.
Features – Adam Crafton
News/Video/Transfers – David Ornstein
League-wide coverage – Daniel Taylor, Oli Kay and Jack Pitt-Brooke
South American footballers – Jack Lang
Tactical analysis – Michael Cox
Staff writers – Dom Fifield, Stuart James, Michael Walker and George Caulkin
Women’s football – Kieran Theivam
The new team will be overseen by managing director Ed Malyon and editor-in-chief Alex Kay-Jelski, with editorial staff Kevin Coulson, Harriet Drudge, David Jordan, James Maw, Charlie Scott, Sarah Shephard, Laura Williamson, Dan Barnes, Adam Hurrey, Hannah Widdis and Neil Rowlands.
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wonder if all these star reporters are being replaced with new staff . or are the poor devils already there having more work heaped on them.
Perhaps we could have a list of the new reporters on the newspapers?
This development is going to be a fascinating one to watch.
If it doesn’t work a lot of good sports journos will be out of work.
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If it goes pearshaped the British pub trade is in for a sad time.
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Paperboy.; Underlings will step up but not before trying to assure readers the transition will be seamless, they’re big fans of the club and know what they’re doing no doubt.
Same workload but a reduction in quality
That’s an impressive line up of top notch reporters at The Athletic to be fair, I feel it could become essential reading for footy fans
Time will tell
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From a Scottish football fan’s perspective, the Atlantic have fallen into the same lazy stereotype that all football fans north of the Tweed only care about two clubs – Celtic and Rangers*. While those two have the largest supports, to ignore Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen et al is a sure way not to be getting the ‘East Coast pound’. Aberdeen after all have a European record that many of the English clubs that are being covered by The Atlantic can only dream about (even second tier Dundee United have a European track record better than many down south). Setanta TV many moons ago offered a pay-per-view deal for Scottish football only it seemed to serve two clubs only. One example was them preferring to screen a stroll in the park for Celtic at Livingston whilst ignoring an Edinburgh derby between Hearts & Hibs in 2005. No surprise that many subscribers (myself included) drifted away and the channel went bust. BT Sport learned that lesson and have given great nationwide coverage of Scottish football. The fact that many were angry the SFA gave the TV contract to another firm earlier this year shows how good a job – in the fans’ eyes – that they had been doing (I believe Sky – whose ignorance of the game up north is well known – offered more money and the SFA chose cash over quality). If the Atlantic don’t expand its Scottish coverage, I don’t think they’ll be getting any long-lasting subscriptions from there. But I’m sure their Bournemouth coverage will keep them in Hershey bars.
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As ever, the question of the subscription model delivering enough cash to work is key. There’s no doubt there’s some talent there though, with quite a range of experience.
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I sincerely hope The Athletic have done their homework regarding potential subscribers – introductory offers notwithstanding.
They are entering a very crowded marketplace, but good luck to them.
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Take out your best staff:editorial, photographic and commercial ,and what are you left with?
Not much, as we in the industry as well as the paper buying public have seen, reduce the quality if you must but don’t be surprised when interest along with sales, fall.
Having these top football writers, with their knowledge, connections and followers,up sticks and go,adds another nail to the already nail filled coffins of the regional groups mentioned.
Short sightedness yet again by the top brass in letting the best people go and a vote of no confidence in the future by those who’ve jumped ship.
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The real problem will be for sites such as Reach’s football.london. The salaries being offered by the rival will have many thinking of jumping ship at the first opportunity. For the local websites much of the football traffic comes from the Far East, so no interest for local advertisers.
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I give it one season….
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Who has time for in-depth features? There’s a zillion sites that give you info on top clubs from local papers to web fanzines. I don’t pay to read about my team so I’m not forking out a fiver a month when it’s free almost everywhere else. Won’t last.
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With a payroll of £2-£3m, and probably double that to break even. I’d be surprised if it lasts a year, can’t imagine they will get over 1m people paying £5 a month for football news which is free everywhere else.
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People have missed the point a little. Subscribing to the Athletic does not just get you the football coverage it gets you all their American sports coverage also. And it works the other way too.
You can say they need a lot of subscriptions from the UK to make it work and sure, they do, but they will also be getting subs from the US and other countries.
The Premier League is huge in the US and the Athletic are treating this as global rather than national. Any predictions made on the cost vs the number of UK-based subscriptions they get is just wrong I’m afraid.
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VERYOLDHACK
I don’t believe The Athletic is aimed at you as you say “…don’t pay to read about my team..” it’s aimed at the real die hard club fan who wants in depth independent and well written content and not just the official club line issued by the club PR, the safe content put out by the local paper wary of treading on toes or upsetting the club, or the ill informed albeit passionate views and comments on many ( well written) fan sites.
There’s plenty of free material readily available online about every local club and team which is more than enough for many people,however I believe The Athletic aims to fill the void by using the best writers from around the regions to produce the best independent news,views and analysis about their clubs for which o believe there’s a ready made market.
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I’ve already seen pieces from The Athletic cut and pasted onto the Liverpool fans’ message boards. Difficult to see how a paywall will work if people are prepaped to circumnavigate it.
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Who’s the dedicated reporter for The Lye?
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@Matthew Leslie
That’s a good point. I only really thought about this yesterday when I saw that each club had its own writer. Speaking personally, if I want news on my club I’ll go to the club website.
Where The Athletic could do well is by doing what 442 do, by having in-depth features about the game itself, things that are outside of what you’d normally get to read about on your own club website.
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I would like to think the number of top regional sports/ football writers all leaving their papers to join the Athletic would prompt the top brass to review wages and the value of keeping the best staff within the business but let’s be honest, it won’t.
They’ll still expect the same level of work to be churned out but will probably delight in having saved a few FTEs salaries off the payroll.
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