Football's unsung heroes

Nice to see some publicity where it's due for Andy West and his team at the Madstad. Just read my copy of PR Week only to be greeted with a centre page article on Westie and the team entitled Football's unsung heroes. The media and comms teams from Reading, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Ipswich were covered. Here's the article in full...

"The press side of things is completely different in the Premier League." admits Reading head of comms Andy West. When the team were promoted last season, the first thing West did was hire two more comms staff to cope with the surge in media interest.

Reading's media team now holds two press days a week, one for the local media and one for the nationals. As Reading is now a top-flight club, West is bombarded with calls from sports hacks, but his policy is not to comment on speculation. "There is so much of it, but the deals have to be signed before we can say anything. There can be any number of twists and turns that could make you look pretty silly if you jump the gun." he explains. "There is also the danger you wiil alert other clubs that may be interested in the player in question."

The club's international reach is something West and his team are keen to develop. A recent tour to South Korea gave new boy Seol Ki-Hyeon a chance to play for Reading on his home turf and gave West an excellent chance to promote the club in the Asian media.

West was also recently interviewed on BBCWorld Service. He is quick to dismiss any suggestion that Ki-Hyeon was signed with marketing in mind, but now he is an established member of the squad West is keen to maximise media interest around him. The club also has players from Ecuador, Cameroon, France and Ireland,and West has been planning ways of using them to drum up support for Reading in their home countries.

West describes Reading as a 'small club with big ambitions', and that is a key element to his comms strategy. "We need to develop a presence that befits a top-ten club, and that means having an international reputation and a good commercial positioning too." he says. "Obviously we have to do the basics well and respond quickly and efficiently to enquiries, but it is very important that we make sure there is time to be strategic as well."

On match days...
"When we were in the Championship we might have 40 journalists at a game. Now we'll have more than 100 from newspapers, TV, radio and websites, and around 30 photographers too. There's an international presence as well, with the South Korean press following Seol."

On in-house comms...
West's team consists of website manager Craig Mortimer, press officer Simon Heggie, publications manager Mark Bradley and comms assistant Abby Carter. Fans' comms takes up most of the team's time. The website gets 200,000 unique visitors a month and the print run for programmes is around 8,000. "The crucial thing is not to alienate loyal supporters who supported us when we weren't in the Premiership." says West.