I live near Bradford ( sorry) and find the press coverage of Bradford city in our local paper is really outstanding, the coverage of the wanderers in the BFP by comparison is shockingly poor.
Bradford is a big city and the club (historically) v well supported. So big circulation and strong fan base means well resourced media write for an interested readership. Neither of which applies in S Bucks sadly.
Malone is right, coverage of WWWFC in the BFP has improved considerably from a few years ago and I’m not saying that just because I write a few articles for them (unpaid, before anyone asks). Like many local newspapers, they have been hit hard by the trend away from papers to online news and they don’t have the staff or resources to give in depth coverage.
On the flip side though some of the social media videos, pre match YouTube live broadcast and access to management on fan made podcasts is far superior to many championship big city clubs ?
It’s a balancing act for the club. They have their own revenue generating outputs so giving exclusive material to local press is not really in their interest. Which means that the BFP has to carry news pieces which are 2nd hand. I used to buy it religiously to get my news on WWFC including injury updates, player interviews match reviews etc. But as @glasshalffull rightly says they don’t have the resources to generate 3 or 4 pages of quality Wycombe coverage. And sadly won’t again.
But aren’t we privileged to have lived through the great age of local sports journalism, where the written word, painting pictures of how we’d played, was sometimes all we ever had to sustain and inform us, sometimes days later to the current age where we can get both informed and amusing podcasts about the games and also see and respond to the thoughts of the game as (or before on some dodgy wi-fi connections) it happens from our fellow supporters (some thousands of miles away).
I miss the thrill of picking up the BFP every Friday to find out what was happening at our club but relish being able to press a couple of links on my phone to be able to read about the latest developments (and zero information about any injury news).
That's the rub isn't it @bookertease . It was great back in the day looking forward to reading the Wanderers stuff. I used to absolutely love the end of season pull outs etc, filing them away in folders etc.
These days I've zero interest in such stuff, as one I'm much older, and two it's online if I need it as a reference.
The saddest thing about the decline of the BFP is that it's kept an unbroken record of most of our history. If you wanted to you could head to Wycombe Library tomorrow, fire up the microfilm and while away a few hours reading match reports from the 20s, injury controversies from the 50s, away travel details from the 80s and on and on. I spent a very happy few weeks doing just that one summer.
Today's information age makes the information more accessible, but much more ephemeral and that's a great shame. Future generations will find much more newsprint about our struggles in the Alliance League than they will about our first season in Championship.
One of the great joys of working at the BFP in pre-internet days was seeing the sports pages coming together on the Thursday (or Monday in the case of the Midweek) and going to the pub in the evening with exclusive info.
We used to put together Blues News as well, the club’s foray into its own publication, which was carried inside the BFP. Can’t for the life of me remember how often it was published but pretty sure @glasshalffull had a column in there.
I know there is the microfilm of the old BFPs in the new Wycombe Library, but I often wonder what happened to the huge red volumes containing all the printed editions (including Midweeks as well), superbly bound together and stored at the old library along Queen Victoria Road.
What irritates me on press coverage, is the void that we (WWFC) fall into in terms of BBC local TV coverage. We seem to be told by them that geographically, we're a London club but fail to be mentioned on the London local news as seemingly too many other "big" clubs in the zone. BBC South (SKY 965) make a big thing of Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Reading, Oxford, Swindon and MK Dons and we get a mention as the opposition when that occurs. BBC South report High Wycombe news and we figure on the weather map (albeit on the edge of the area). BBC London don't seem to report HW news and although the weather map covers the area, it's not usually named. Apologies if this is a slight thread derail. Sigh, rant over.
I agree with Valley Wanderer that the coverage we get from the terrestrial TV channels is extremely poor. It’s something I tried to address when I had the media role at the club, but there was just no interest from the BBC or ITV. Geographically, we are in a kind of no man’s land which doesn’t help but I mistakenly thought the coverage would improve when we became a Championship club.
@Vincey I remember when we beat Oxford just before Christmas a few years ago at AP, he had a go at us, in a really patronising way, about our floodlights. Admittedly, before the recent upgrade, they were really poor, but it's still an incredibly unprofessional thing to do on the air.
@NewburyWanderer said: @Vincey I remember when we beat Oxford just before Christmas a few years ago at AP, he had a go at us, in a really patronising way, about our floodlights. Admittedly, before the recent upgrade, they were really poor, but it's still an incredibly unprofessional thing to do on the air.
Am I the only one who never gave the floodlights a second's thought?
I never struggled to see what was going on fully!
He's still on the fb group now and comments every so often.
For all the ultra cynical views on his motives, and the difficulty of seeing how rattling around a big stadium paying rent, would have helped us long term, I still think he wasn't as bad as some suggest.
BBC radio Oxford’s coverage of the PNL is comprehensive. Every game full commentary plus hour long pre and post analysis, reporters in the crowd with fans as well, plus a mid week analysis show. As mentioned elsewhere all hosted by the miserable Jerome Sales (who changes his accent from poshish BBC Oxford a v local news to blokish football commentary - risible at best).
Given that their frequency reaches the M40 cutting 10 miles from AP some Wycombe coverage would be welcomed but never going to happen.
Driving home into enemy territory I pray that 3CR get the Gaz post match interview on before I hit Stokenchurch, from there on its Div 1 coverage all the way. The only upside when they are having a poor run their fans on the phone in are hilarious.
Comments
Bradford is a big city and the club (historically) v well supported. So big circulation and strong fan base means well resourced media write for an interested readership. Neither of which applies in S Bucks sadly.
The whole of the BFP (printed and website) is shockingly poor.
The BFP coverage is superb compared to how it was in the dark days of Wasps.
We were buried deep in the paper and only had utterly minimal coverage.
The bigger issue of course these days is printed newspapers are outdated. If you're a big fan you've probably read the content online already.
Malone is right, coverage of WWWFC in the BFP has improved considerably from a few years ago and I’m not saying that just because I write a few articles for them (unpaid, before anyone asks). Like many local newspapers, they have been hit hard by the trend away from papers to online news and they don’t have the staff or resources to give in depth coverage.
@Malone which is why you need an empty vessel gob on a stick like Mr Swann to keep people clicking...
On the flip side though some of the social media videos, pre match YouTube live broadcast and access to management on fan made podcasts is far superior to many championship big city clubs ?
It’s a balancing act for the club. They have their own revenue generating outputs so giving exclusive material to local press is not really in their interest. Which means that the BFP has to carry news pieces which are 2nd hand. I used to buy it religiously to get my news on WWFC including injury updates, player interviews match reviews etc. But as @glasshalffull rightly says they don’t have the resources to generate 3 or 4 pages of quality Wycombe coverage. And sadly won’t again.
But aren’t we privileged to have lived through the great age of local sports journalism, where the written word, painting pictures of how we’d played, was sometimes all we ever had to sustain and inform us, sometimes days later to the current age where we can get both informed and amusing podcasts about the games and also see and respond to the thoughts of the game as (or before on some dodgy wi-fi connections) it happens from our fellow supporters (some thousands of miles away).
I miss the thrill of picking up the BFP every Friday to find out what was happening at our club but relish being able to press a couple of links on my phone to be able to read about the latest developments (and zero information about any injury news).
That's the rub isn't it @bookertease . It was great back in the day looking forward to reading the Wanderers stuff. I used to absolutely love the end of season pull outs etc, filing them away in folders etc.
These days I've zero interest in such stuff, as one I'm much older, and two it's online if I need it as a reference.
The saddest thing about the decline of the BFP is that it's kept an unbroken record of most of our history. If you wanted to you could head to Wycombe Library tomorrow, fire up the microfilm and while away a few hours reading match reports from the 20s, injury controversies from the 50s, away travel details from the 80s and on and on. I spent a very happy few weeks doing just that one summer.
Today's information age makes the information more accessible, but much more ephemeral and that's a great shame. Future generations will find much more newsprint about our struggles in the Alliance League than they will about our first season in Championship.
One of the great joys of working at the BFP in pre-internet days was seeing the sports pages coming together on the Thursday (or Monday in the case of the Midweek) and going to the pub in the evening with exclusive info.
We used to put together Blues News as well, the club’s foray into its own publication, which was carried inside the BFP. Can’t for the life of me remember how often it was published but pretty sure @glasshalffull had a column in there.
@arnos_grove here in all its glory...
https://wwfan01.wixsite.com/wwfcarchive6/blues-news-magazine
I know there is the microfilm of the old BFPs in the new Wycombe Library, but I often wonder what happened to the huge red volumes containing all the printed editions (including Midweeks as well), superbly bound together and stored at the old library along Queen Victoria Road.
Please tell me they weren't destroyed
Thanks for the link. I’ve probably got some stashed in the loft somewhere but must admit I’d forgotten that they used to do this supplement.
You should have posted a warning about not scrolling down to issue 19 without a strong drink in your hand though.
Only skim read them so far but there seems to be as many articles complaining about low attendances and fans moaning as I remember
Couldn't possibly mention the author
What irritates me on press coverage, is the void that we (WWFC) fall into in terms of BBC local TV coverage. We seem to be told by them that geographically, we're a London club but fail to be mentioned on the London local news as seemingly too many other "big" clubs in the zone. BBC South (SKY 965) make a big thing of Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Reading, Oxford, Swindon and MK Dons and we get a mention as the opposition when that occurs. BBC South report High Wycombe news and we figure on the weather map (albeit on the edge of the area). BBC London don't seem to report HW news and although the weather map covers the area, it's not usually named. Apologies if this is a slight thread derail. Sigh, rant over.
I agree with Valley Wanderer that the coverage we get from the terrestrial TV channels is extremely poor. It’s something I tried to address when I had the media role at the club, but there was just no interest from the BBC or ITV. Geographically, we are in a kind of no man’s land which doesn’t help but I mistakenly thought the coverage would improve when we became a Championship club.
I wonder if Jerome Sale (OUFC fan and BBC South today presenter) has had any influence on coverage of WWFC.
He of course made the non league jibe about us when Hylton blasted the penalty over the fence.
@Vincey I remember when we beat Oxford just before Christmas a few years ago at AP, he had a go at us, in a really patronising way, about our floodlights. Admittedly, before the recent upgrade, they were really poor, but it's still an incredibly unprofessional thing to do on the air.
Am I the only one who never gave the floodlights a second's thought?
I never struggled to see what was going on fully!
@Malone ...but I'm really old and decrepit ?
On page seven of issue 10, Tim Langford is interviewed by Steve Hayes. This was 1994, can someone explain it to me?
@floyd Think he was around the club for some time before he got really involved, introduced by Terry Evans IIRC.
He's still on the fb group now and comments every so often.
For all the ultra cynical views on his motives, and the difficulty of seeing how rattling around a big stadium paying rent, would have helped us long term, I still think he wasn't as bad as some suggest.
I'm not surprised
BBC radio Oxford’s coverage of the PNL is comprehensive. Every game full commentary plus hour long pre and post analysis, reporters in the crowd with fans as well, plus a mid week analysis show. As mentioned elsewhere all hosted by the miserable Jerome Sales (who changes his accent from poshish BBC Oxford a v local news to blokish football commentary - risible at best).
Given that their frequency reaches the M40 cutting 10 miles from AP some Wycombe coverage would be welcomed but never going to happen.
Driving home into enemy territory I pray that 3CR get the Gaz post match interview on before I hit Stokenchurch, from there on its Div 1 coverage all the way. The only upside when they are having a poor run their fans on the phone in are hilarious.