Exploring the Relationship Between the Southern Daily Echo and Southampton F.C.

For years the number one source of news for fans of Southampton Football Club (the Saints) was the Southern Daily Echo, a newspaper who had a close relationship with the club due to its locality. They would publish interviews with the manager, extensive match reports and features that were written by club legends.

The paper circulates around every suburb in Southampton and western Hampshire, from Eastleigh to Lyndhurst, from Totton to Thornhill, Winchester to Alresford, and sells upwards of 30,000 copies a day. Their website shows the top ten most commented and most viewed articles of the day, most of which are Saints related. What this tells me is that the people who purchase the paper and read the website enjoy digesting information about their local club, or may even be swayed to support them due to their local exposure and relevance. What's more, the readership is C2DE, football's main audience.

Directly after Saturdays fixtures, the Daily Echo prints its sister-paper ‘The Pink’ which is dedicated to local league and non-league sports sides. Southampton Football Club plays a prominent role in selling the paper; they are the biggest side on the South coast so fans from around the region will buy it to read the match report and player ratings. In this respect, the Echo relies on Saints to sell the paper. You could argue that the public buy it because the paper covers non-league football and other sports that rarely get coverage elsewhere, but the front page, the main selling point, is usually dedicated to Southampton FC.

In December 2009 this close-knit relationship soured when Saints were planning a press conference to announce an extension to their current training ground, Staplewood. Nicola Cortese, Southampton’s Chief Executive, asked the press if they could refrain from printing the story until after the plans were officially unveiled. The Daily Echo went ahead and printed the plans in the day’s edition before they were announced. Acting swiftly, Cortese banned the Echo and their reporters from St. Mary’s stadium.

In a statement, the Daily Echo insisted that they had done nothing wrong. They say that they reported the plans once they had become available to the public and also state that other media outlets such as the BBC and Sky Sports News were also running the story. In response to confusion from the paper’s readership, Editor Ian Murray spoke of the issue in January 2010, saying that an embargo was not in place to halt the reports. A few months later, Cortese slammed the Echo, insinuating that it printed the story to extend their readership.

This was the first of two occasions where the club got on the wrong side of the local press. On the second it extended to the national papers as well. In an aim to make more profit, Cortese banned photographers from the stadium, insisting that if the press want pictures from the game they would have to buy them from the club. Although the ban was eventually lifted, the rift towards the Daily Echo continued as the ban on them remained in place.