Unmemorable Title » football

Are The Evils of Modern Football Ruining Your Blog?

Andrew — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:00:20 +0000

Don't let Football's Evils harm your blog

Football. It’s a lot like blogging. It used to be the hobby of various undesirables who spent their weekends locked in running battles throughout the town centres, now it’s the preserve of reasonable professionals with Sky TV subscriptions.

Ok, maybe blogging never had the same hooligan problem as association football. But it is suffering from the same modern maladies as the beautiful game. There might be less diving, no referees to argue with and a lack of salmonella-ridden pies, but you’d better beware of the following footballing evils.

Tim Lovejoy

Tim Lovejoy. The archetypical modern football fan. Doesn’t understand the game, doesn’t go to matches, doesn’t have the foggiest idea what the words burbling out of his smug face actually mean. He represents the first of football’s evils. Falsely assuming a position of authority.

If you’ve set yourself up as the leading mind in your field, the go-to-gal in your niche or the mastermind of your very own specialist subject, you’d better be able to back it up. Otherwise you’ll be found out. You’ll claim that Johan Cruyff is your favourite ever player, then admit to never having seen him kick a ball. And you’ll look like a fool. And people will stop taking you seriously.

After that, you’ll end up lurking on some cookery forum, trying to rebuild your reputation.

The Hype Machine

Ever watched Sky Sports News? Every single development is EARTH SHATTERING. Whether it’s Wayne Rooney ruling himself out of international duty due to an ingrowing nose hair, or the latest from Stoke City 0-0 Birmingham City, they’ll pretend it’s the biggest event since a few Germans decided to have an impromptu sledgehammer and re-unification soiree.

Don’t fall into this trap yourself. Not every development is a game changer. If you stand on the rooftops hailing the next Yahoo Meme as a guaranteed Twitter killer, or proclaim to the masses that Google Wave has rendered email obsolete, you’ll look like a berk. Don’t get egg on your chin. Stay sane and sensible, and don’t install a news ticker on your blog.

History Began in 1992

Despite what Sky want you to think, history didn’t begin in 1992. Liverpool aren’t a small club because they’ve “Never Won The Premiership(tm)” – they won every other league title for two decades.

Likewise, you deciding that “blogging is all about talking to your audience” isn’t as groundbreaking as you think. That was true of magazines, books, Roman graffiti and prehistoric cave art. Just because the packaging has changed doesn’t mean the product is significantly different. Bear that in mind, or people with long memories will start to lose confidence in you.

Money

Talk to any football fan, and sooner or later the conversation will turn to money. Wages, transfer fees, debts – these are now as prevalent in pub conversations as goals, tackles and why singing the national anthem REALLY LOUDLY is the key to international success. And it’s boring.

Likewise, when you spend every second paragraph hawking your wares, plugging your affiliates or telling us how much you charge per word, you’re going to bore people. So keep it to a reasonable level. Money ruined football – don’t let it ruin your blog too.

Manchester United

I admit, I’ve got nothing for this one. I just wanted to use the picture.

If it wasn’t clichéd, Andy would apologise for not posting in August, citing back to back illnesses and the start of the football season. But it is clichéd, so he’ll just suggest you follow him on Twitter.

Four Things to Celebrate This Manchester Day

Andrew — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:59:17 +0000

Photo by Ben Sutherland

Most of you will be aware that today is Father’s Day (if not, I advise making a quick apologetic phone call before reading on), but it’s been brought to my attention that 20/6/10 marks the first ever “Manchester Day”

As I’m always one for marking ridiculous holidays that’ve been made up by tourist boards and councils, I’d like to share four Mancunian things that you should celebrate. Preferably by faking a Liam Gallagher accent, whilst drinking a pint of Holt’s.

Manchester SEO

Naturally, I’ll have to mention FirstFound here, given that it’s my job to publicise the company (and create great free content like the FirstFound Social Media Guide ), but there’s a lot of non-corporate SEO advice to be had in the Capital of the North. There’s the #MancSEO meetups, and great blogs like Webtoastie.

Manchester Copywriting

I’ll take it as read that you’re familiar with Unmemorable Title, but I’m far from the only copywriting blogger in Manchester. There’s UT guest poster Tom Mason, and people like Martin Williams (the only man to be following me on Twitter twice). That’s far from a comprehensive list, but as we Mancunians are SEO experts, Google is your friend.

Manchester Blogging

It’s almost heresy in a post like this, but I do need to mention plazzie Scouser Roger Davies and his great blog post about moving to Manchester. Now that’s done, we can move on to the cream of the city’s bloggers. I’ve covered them before, but you should familiarise yourself with last year’s Manchester Blog Awards finalists. And then add My Shitty Twenties and I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car to your RSS feeds.

Manchester Football

Specifically this match.

Yeah. Manchester and football. Even Leeds fans can learn to love it.

Andy’s been slack in updating the blog because he’s been busting his chops on the FirstFound Blog. He is still on Twitter more than he should be though.

How Not to Deal With Clients – The Rafa Benitez Method

Andrew — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:57:57 +0000

Photo by G-Hat

A quick disclaimer before I rile up the Reds with this article. I may be Mancunian, but my football loyalties lie in West Yorkshire. On the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I don’t have an axe to grind with Liverpool FC.

“The referee’s assistant was too young”
“We should have been given three penalties instead of one”
“It wasn’t my fault!”

Do you know what Rafa Benitez should have said after watching his title chasing Liverpool side sink to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the mediocre Tottenham Hotspur? The magic words that would have let him walk away from a potentially embarassing defeat with his head held high?

Simple.

“I made a mistake.”

We may not all have allowed supposedly inferior opposition to score twice against our Premiership football side, but we’ve all made mistakes. The second you realise that the bullet has left the barrel and is heading at full pelt for your outstreched foot, your first reaction is to bluff and bluster and blame it on anything you can think of.

Writing an advert for a hotel once, I made a snide little pun about the vegetarian menu being for people who don’t like real food and eat like rabbits. Funnily enough, this went down like a ton of bricks with the vegan hotel manager and they didn’t want to make use of our services. I tried all the normal excuses to make it look like I wasn’t in the wrong and the client shouldn’t have been offended, “I thought it’d be funny“, “most of your clients will be omnivores“. “you need to lighten up!”

Nothing but stony-faced silence.

Finally, I did what I had to do. I owned up to my mistake, admitted it had been a badly-judged comment and apologised.

That client got five more adverts from us, and loved every single one.

Have you put your pen to paper and foot into mouth? Share your best excuses in the comments section. If you need to apologise to someone but don’t know how, you shouldn’t use this template.