The best Stoke-Con-Tent in Stoke-on-Trent

Welcome to SCFC Mediawatch, the first of a weekly feature in which we review the previous week in Stoke City-related media. From fanzines and podcasts to why we were last on Match of the Day again, SCFC mediawatch looks at all levels of media and picks out the most interesting stuff. Found a good article/video/piece of (sigh) ‘content’? Let us know.

We’ll start with the club itself. There was much fanfare this week when the club unveiled its shiny new website. After an awkward few minutes of the website not working for most of us, the consensus is that the new site is an upgrade not just in terms of design, but with the introduction of Stoke City +, a handy new video section. Given that I know of nobody who paid for previous incarnation ‘Stoke City Player’, this is a welcome new feature with 10 minute highlights of our Premier League games already uploaded.

On the subject of the (double sigh) ‘content’ coming from the club itself, there is a sense that the club could and should be doing more on social media. It’s hard to see us managing anything on the scale of Southampton’s #MadeForHeroes videos any time soon. Plenty of other clubs have already shown innovation and a good deal of humour in terms of their output this summer, whereas we don’t seem to be all that good at it. That’s not to criticise any individual employee of Stoke City, who do an often thankless job, but you do wonder if the powers that be should be investing more money into this area. We interviewed club journalist Jon Sidaway on the podcast a while back, and he provided an illuminating insight into the constraints that exist at a football club media department.

Of course we’d all rather the money went on signing players, but the tweets about our lack of quality online are multiplying. Basically, we want more of Muni and Bojan playing Guess Who? and Ryan destroying Arsenal fans in a Twitter takeover.

There’s also the issue of a general lack of communication from the club with regards to pre-season friendlies. For many, the confirmation of the Monaco fixture came way too late in the day. We have no idea if the club were in a position to confirm it earlier, but it’s annoyed a few.

Meanwhile The Sentinel have widened the scope with their new podcast Delilah. Having already bagged Jimmy Greenhoff for an interview, they’re making us at Wizards feel a bit like Homer does when Barney gets the ‘Plow King’. What does seem clear at least for the moment is they’re trying a different tack to us and Bear Pit, with some interesting new ideas like episodes on the Konoplyanka saga and an interview with agent Gary Mellor. All welcome competition, though by August the Stoke podcasts may need to recreate the fight scene from Anchorman.

It would be remiss of us not to mention that there’s a new Duck Magazine out, too. A PDF only-effort for the summer, this one is lovingly designed by friend of the pod Joe Barbieri, and is chopped full of the usual eclectic mix of articles. The interviews with Marc Muniesa and Everton Fanzine When Skies Are Grey are terrific, as is Rob Doolan’s piece on Zinedine Zidane. DM @DuckMagStoke and they’ll email you a copy.

Also, shock news appears to be that Propa Stokie and Selfie merchant Hairy Potter is hanging up his beard dye. Whether he’s said Curry, Pint, Job Done to the beard, selfies or Stoke in general, we’re not sure – we’re going off this tweet. Thanks Hairy, it’s been emotional. We post this video in your honour:

 

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK: Not technically a ‘new’ article, but one that’s really well worth reading is Martyn Cooke’s academic paper on the origins of Stoke City. Fascinating stuff.

Also, a mention to Jonathan Birchall’s brilliant piece about mental health in football in the latest Duck.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: We’re all for supporting new Stoke (okay clook I clearly don’t know enough words) ‘content’. So here’s newly-launched channel ‘Boothen Rumours’, which we found via Stoke Loud and Proud. If this is them, or they’re just giving a new channel a promo push, fair play.

If you’re after some nostalgia, we’ve been uploading a load of great stuff over on our Facebook page, including a Beagrie wonderstrike, Peter Hoekstra being majestic and this illustration of how far we’ve come.

TWEET OF THE WEEK:

Just. Too. Cute.

That’s about it, stay tuned next week for more of us talking about people talking about Stoke.