The bits about the food at City explain why there's now a specific media car park and why it always appears to be full. Maybe we should just ban the idiots from the food area.
Daniel Taylor, recently promoted to be The Guardian's chief football writer, has been covering the Manchester clubs since 2000. F365 spoke to him about what it's like trying to report on Sir Alex Ferguson, and other issues up north...
Despite the promotion, are you still banned from Alex Ferguson's press conferences?
Oh yeah - I've been banned since 2007. I wrote a book about him, which was a two-year diary of the 2005/6 and 2006/7 seasons, and it's about covering them, press conferences, all the little anecdotes that you get and all the stuff you don't see in the papers - chasing him around the world basically, trying to give a perspective about what it's like to be in the United press camp.
I wrote to him about six months before it came out - or rather, I wrote to the United press office for his attention, and I got a letter back from them saying 'Good luck with it, lots of stuff to go on etc', but it turned out they hadn't actually showed it to Fergie. So when the first book reviews came out, which obviously picked out a few of the anecdotes where he lost his temper, he saw it as some sort of huge deception on my part, even though I'd written to him. It's not ideal, but once he's made his mind up it's difficult to get him to change it.
The weird bit is that the book - which he's never read- is called 'This Is The One; The Uncut Story Of A Football Genius', so getting banned for calling him a football genius is odd. I would say this I suppose, but there's never been anyone who's said it's a hatchet job.
He got a press officer to read it on his behalf, who gave it this professional, over-the-top report with sub-headings and everything, and the recommendation of this report was that there's nothing wrong with it, and it's completely fair, and he basically said 'I'll ban him anyway'.
Is being banned from his press conferences a massive problem for your work?
Well, at the moment I'm banned, The Daily Mail reporters are banned, the Associated Press are banned, The Daily Mirror are banned, The Independent are banned, The Daily Star are banned, so there's only four papers that are allowed in there - The Sun, The Express, The Times and The Telegraph, so he's manoeuvred it so a lot of the people who ask questions he doesn't like are moved out. The AP were banned for asking a football question about Ryan Giggs.
It's not ideal, because you can't ask your own questions, but it's just the way he works. I suppose we're used to it, but it's not the end of the world because his press conferences are deliberately bland. A lot of us think he deliberately goes off and talks about a subject that he knows is relatively harmless and irrelevant for the newspapers because it takes up a lot of the time for his press conferences.
It's a shame, because obviously you want to work closely with the managers you cover, but it doesn't have a great impact.
In a way, does it give you a bit more freedom, because you don't really have to worry about p*ssing him off?
A bit, but while this might sound a bit corny, I always tried to do it fairly anyway. When I was in his press conferences I always tried to criticise him when I thought he needed criticising and praise him when he needed praising, and it's the same afterwards.
The only thing that's a bit difficult is that if you criticise him after you've been banned, you will always have 'You're only saying that because you're banned' thrown at you. Fergie's done that himself, because The Guardian did a story about Bebe and how a lot of the training ground staff were taken aback at how 'raw' he was. So basically Fergie went into his press conference and said it was vicious reporting from two people who have an agenda because they're banned.
As I said, it's not a massive problem - he doesn't do press conferences, and most of the press get post-match quotes by holding tapes up to MUTV in the press room - that's how bad it is.
In public, when it comes to the Glazers Fergie has a very 'company line' approach of never criticising them, but is there any suggestion that he does get frustrated with them behind the scenes?
Not from him, but would he ever admit it if there was? However, he broke the transfer record three times in seven years in the past, but now I think there's a stat which shows United's net spend is less than Stoke, Sunderland and Aston Villa since the Glazers took over.
He's criticised owners in the past for not giving him money to spend, and he's criticised Martin Edwards, but he won't have a bad word said about the Glazers, because obviously they pay him very well, but also it was him and his row with JP McManus and John Magnier about the horses that set off the chain of events for the Glazers to take over. Maybe one day he'll talk about it if he does another book, but maybe he won't because it will reflect badly on him.
Ravel Morrison - have you ever known anyone hyped quite so much before really getting into the team?
In terms of the hype, I don't know if you've seen him play but he is ridiculously talented. You can look at a load of YouTube videos of a lot of kids, but he's always looking for the space, he's always looking for passes at the perfect angles, he beats players, he can score goals...everything.
There are times when he's had his own legitimate grievances, like when Ferguson hung him out to dry about the contract offer, and his agent is entitled to talk to other clubs, because his contract is up in the summer - what else would an agent do? United have left it this long, so I don't really see what the agent has done wrong. To me, it's a diversion tactic from Fergie, but I know a lot of people who won't agree with that.
I just think it's got to the point where both sides realise there's nowhere really for it to go. The relationship has broken down, and while it can always be repaired, I'm not sure it will be in this case.
We had a piece on F365 recently that said United should take the initiative in the Suarez/Evra thing, to initiate something to take the heat out of the upcoming FA Cup game - do you think they would do that?
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate why that would be a nice thing to do, but I think it would be naive to think a picture on the front of the programme of Fergie and Dalglish would solve things. Do you really think there wouldn't be chants, or that Evra wouldn't be booed like you've never heard before?
It must be a brilliant time to be covering football in Manchester at the moment. Philip Cornwall wrote a piece this week in which he wondered whether Roberto Mancini is calm or clever enough for a title race in England - would you agree?
Well, Mancini's an emotional guy, but I think he's kept most of that under wraps, certainly compared to when he was playing. I think it's just been highlighted a bit more because of recent events, like the card-waving and the argument with Gerrard.
I think people are questioning him in a 'Can he handle the tension?' way, but he doesn't strike me as someone who will have a massive meltdown or anything.
The whole Tevez thing - was that because of his emotions? Why do you think they let it get this far? If it was all a big misunderstanding, could it not have all been solved with an apology?
Yes, but the apology has to come from Tevez. They tried - Mancini invited him round to his house one night, gave him a cup of coffee, swallowed his pride and initiated it, and basically said if you apologise - which keeping in mind he did clearly do something wrong - you can start training with us again, and we can put this behind us, and Tevez flatly refused. So if after that Mancini lets him in, his credibility is at zero.
If he goes to Argentina, refuses to take City's phone calls and everything else, I don't really see what City can do. They can't go to Buenos Aires and kidnap him.
Mark Hughes - he comes across as a rather prickly character, to say the least - what were your impressions of him at City?
I liked him when he was at City, he was a decent bloke and in hindsight of course they have got the better manager with Mancini, but he did have some legitimate grievances - his sacking was done shabbily, all the fans knew about it and he found out by seeing it in the papers and Garry Cook said he had been looking at other managers for six months.
However, I find him a bit confusing, because the guy I remember is not the guy you see at the moment. I wouldn't put him with Kia Joorabchian, for example. Beneath that quiet, reserved front, he does have quite a high opinion of himself, shall we say, which sometimes isn't a bad thing. However, I think he's a decent, accomplished, competent manager, but I can't see him at one of the big four.
Finally, F365 editor Sarah Winterburn wanted to know about one of the big issues - is the press food at City as good as everyone says it is?
Oh yeah, it's really good. Arsenal and Chelsea's is good, United's is awful, Newcastle's is horrendous. Ever since the BBC have moved up to Manchester it seems as if there are about 30 of their journalists at City eating their dinner, but everyone gets there quite early because it's pretty much a roast dinner every time. The other thing is you get a little tub of sweets to take into the press box.
