The League Paper Review

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 30/09/2009

The League Paper has returned to the UK's newsstands after two years in the wilderness. Is it worth getting? I bought a copy at the weekend to investigate whether it was worth investing in.

Firstly the price of £1.50 is reasonable value, although if you want to read the news as well you'll need to spend a couple of quid on a mainstream paper such as The Sunday Times or The Observer. There are 48 pages, and not many adverts, so there's quite a lot of content to take in.

The bread and butter of the paper is the match reports. Every football league game is covered - the Premiership, Scotland and non-league football are restricted to results. The reports appeared to be first hand, i.e. the writer was at the game, although a substantial part of each report is taken up by the managers' comments it has to be said. You also get some basic statistics on each game, although nothing you can't see on the Internet. There aren't many pictures of the actual games.

There are a few pages of news at the start of the paper, which were vaguely interesting, and Steve Claridge has a column - not the greatest choice since you can hear what he thinks about the main issues on the BBC's new show.

Things I'd expect to see but aren't there are a betting column, a pools guide, a letters page and an editorial section. I'd also like to see a few more columnists and more opinion generally - that's what distinguishes papers in my mind from the basic news which you get on the Internet.

In summary The League Paper contains very little which you can't read on the Internet if you were to bother to search for all the information. What is offer though is convenience. Reading the printed word is easier on the eye than on the screen, and it's easier to concentrate on what you're reading when it's in your hand.

It's useful for a bit of background information about what's going on in League Two but I wouldn't buy it in preference to a normal paper which has so much else besides football from three divisions. I don't buy a Sunday paper every week anyway, so I don't expect to buy The League Paper on more than a few occasions a year.

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