It shouldn't happen to a (sports) journalist

By Paul Berry on Feb 8, 08 07:38 PM

Friday morning at Wolves is press conference morning.

A section of media gather, usually a handful of reporters, couple of radio men and if it's a big game the odd TV crew or two to listen to the pre-match thoughts of Mick McCarthy.

McCarthy, who turned 49 yesterday, as several photos dotted about the training ground took great delight in proclaiming!

For the Birmingham Mail, it needs a pretty quick turnaround to get McCarthy's words across interspace and onto the pages in time for the paper's Black Country edition.

So how pleased I was this morning to finally have use of my laptop again, after a month of running repairs preceded by almost a month of waiting for relevant stuff to be ordered.

But of course the laptop didn't work. Yet again. There was no connection. Marvellous.

Still, that other more old-fashioned (and also more reliable) method of phoning through the story to the paper's copytakers was still open to me. No drama.

But no it wasn't. Having been put on hold for no less than 15 minutes I was left in the you know what as deadline loomed. Plenty of drama.

Step forward a hero. The Mail's Albion reporter Chris Lepkowski.

Copytaking might not exactly be part of the reporter's brief but Chris came to the rescue after the technology and manpower problems let me down to take down the story and into the paper it went.

Hands across the Black Country indeed!