Inside Magazines
Mediaweek does New York
Covering soccer from the Big Apple
Sick As A Parrot is back at ACP Magazines, sort of!
By James Manning
During our week in New York we had to look
up Matthew Hall. The pop journo-turned
soccer blogger has a CV that goes from
Aussie pop mag Star! via the BBC to Fairfax
and The New York Times. Hall has called
Brooklyn home for the past five years and
he keeps an office on Manhattan where he
is partner in a production company called
Soda Presents.
Watching the football world from New York
presents no problems, even though football
is a word he knows will never be used in the
US to describe the round ball game.
“I was at Fairfax when the sports depart-
ment in Sydney made the decision to call
soccer football,” Hall recalled. “The Sun-
Herald sports editor, James Carey (who
died sadly aged just 41 last year), and Rod
Allen from The Sydney Morning Herald took
that big leap.”
Before reaching a wider audience with his
great Sick As A Parrot Sun-Herald column
(now sadly discontinued), Hall said, “I
learnt my chops writing for pop culture
magazines. I worked for the BBC in
London for four years as a sub where I
learnt how to write. While people got to
know me for Sick As A Parrot, I was also
simultaneously writing about many differ-
ent things.
“I like people and I like people’s stories
and that to me is the most interesting
thing in journalism whichever medium
you practise in.”
Some of that other work included news
stories for the paper when Hall came across
them. “The Sun-Herald was instrumental
in bringing in the government inquiry that
saw Frank Lowy’s people come into power
in 2004. It was good to be part of that and
to see what we wrote and see our influence
on events and regime change.
“I also wrote a book called The Away
Game which let me develop relation-
ships and trust with Australian players.
Sometimes for their benefit…other times
not. One story that got a lot of coverage was
when Socceroo Mark Viduka said he hadn’t
spoken to his Leeds and Socceroo teammate
Harry Kewell for two or three years. That
was a bigger deal for fans than the players.
At that level of professional sports it’s not
necessarily unusual for players not to talk
to each other. Since then they have become
friends and have a better relationship.”
A documentary film of the same name was
adapted from The Away Game, two editions
16 6 December 2010
Matthew Hall on a cold New York morning
published in 2000 and 2006. The film was
broadcast by National Geographic, SBS
TV, and ARD in Germany and won “Best
Screenplay” at the 2006 Palermo Interna-
tional Sports Film Festival.
Hall built a good relationship with Kewell
and seemed to succeed with interviews
where others tried and failed. How did
he do that? “Kewell had always been very
guarded to the media. That was part of the
culture he grew up with as a young player
at Leeds. He is a shy, reserved character. I
went out of my way to visit him persis-
tently and get in his face. I told the truth
rather than just writing stories that
were based on my belief or thoughts. He
and his manager liked my approach – the
fact that I tried to find the truth and that I
checked facts.”
At the 2010 World Cup, where Hall was
working as a blogger for SBS Online, the
relationship between Australian reporters
and the Socceroos was often prickly. Hall
found himself in the middle of that.
“It was interesting to watch how the media
was dealing with things. Being able to speak
with the players directly, although not
always on the record, was helpful. When
there is a lot of media control the media
has to speculate about what’s going on
and that is exactly what happened with
Harry Kewell at the World Cup. What
some ended up writing was mis-informed
opinion rather than what was factu-
ally going on. The players subsequently
The cover of ACP’s next edition of its newish
sports title, the tri-annual Football+ which goes
on sale December 8
got upset. However some of the
players need to ‘man up’ a bit and
not be so sensitive to criticism.”
Sick As A Parrot
“Then Sun-Herald sports editor
Tony Harper, who now edits Foot-
ball+ for ACP Magazines, came up
with the name. We wanted some-
thing irreverent and almost
nonsensical to demonstrate it wasn’t
just a soccer column. A lot of football fans
had a wider interest in the sport. We would
often run quirky, personality tales…
there’s lots of crazy people doing crazy
things that are funny to read. A lot of
sports reporting can be tedious – particu-
larly in the US. They can be laden with stats
and you get no idea of what when on. Tell
me the story of what happened in the game
and make it entertaining to read.”
Football+
“The idea had been kicked around for a
couple of years between Tony Harper and
ACP’s Michael Koslowski [publisher,
men’s lifestyle] but for various reasons the
time wasn’t right. 2010 seemed the right
time to launch a new football/soccer title
and the first edition launched before the
World Cup and it was very well received
by advertisers and readers. [Launch
edition sold over 50,000 copies with edition
three out on December 8.]
“What we are trying to do is tell inter-
esting long-form stories about the sport
from all around the world. From South
America, to Australia and to Europe –
with some of the best writers in the world.
To get these writers is a massive coup.
We are not just publishing lots of mate-
rial from another magazine, Football+ is
built from the ground up with each story
judged on its merits – not just if it can
fill space.”