Day in the life: Working for United on deadline day

My day began without any idea of how it would pan out. That’s the nature of football on any day, but especially on deadline day.

I began at home to make sure we were ready nice and early for a few departure announcements for Academy players, on deals we were told be ready for completion. It’s not only important to be prepared well in advance, but it’s always good to find out that a talented young United player has secured an important loan move that’ll allow them to develop further.

Ethan Ennis made a flying start to his time at Fleetwood Town by scoring on his debut, and I expect Harry Amass to show his quality at Sheffield Wednesday. There was also Zach Baumann’s permanent move to Norwich City to write up. He’s a good midfielder who had been right the way through the Academy journey but wanted to continue his career elsewhere. Everyone at Carrington will wish him the best of luck.

With those ready, I cycled to Old Trafford where the morning was quiet. I finished off a magazine piece — the new Inside United is out very soon — before working on an edit from a shoot with Bryan Mbeumo. That was a nice break from deadline day, although Sky Sports News was on the TV and there was plenty of chat in the office about the big deals going through.

After a bite to eat, I got a call asking if I could get to Carrington to join Senne Lammens, who was there completing his move from Royal Antwerp. As always with calls like this, my first instinct is as a fan: ‘yes, a good signing!’

After a drive through sheets of Mancunian rain, and unloading the camera gear, we went to check out the possible locations for an interview within the new Carrington building. We’ve loved having a whole new set of possibilities for interviews because, as well as two updated MUTV studios, there are natural places for conversations to take place. For this one, we picked a spot in the players’ canteen where Senne will be spending his lunchtimes going forward.

With that decided, it was time to finalise our questions and find any extra facts about Senne to give the interview a bit more depth, but, more importantly for me, also to help him feel comfortable. With these interviews, I always want one or two little facts that can relax the player before the interview begins. With Mbeumo, I chatted about learning piano, because we both are. With Senne, I noticed he was reading a book I’d read in that Day in the Life video, so it was that. And it ended up coming up in the interview at the end!

So, questions done, I watched Senne do his photography, beginning with the traditional signing photos, the first to be done in the new press conference room at Carrington. He had several very proud family members watching on, and those moments are always special to witness.

Then, it was interview time. As I said, there are often many people around on these significant days for a player, but when the interview begins, that’s when you block it all out and just focus on having a good conversation. And, from my end, it’s about working out how to make the conversation flow naturally while steering us onto topics that I think fans want to know.

Interview done, it was time to transcribe it, then we had a few more announcements to sort. There was a buzz about Carrington with people in a huge variety of roles working hard to get things done in time for the deadline, whether it be those busy completing loan deals for young players, a videographer editing his Lammens announcement video or the photographer flicking through for his best shots of the day.

As dusk arrived, the Carrington chef put on some pizza to fuel everyone, and, with everything wrapped up, I headed home while some of the more important people stayed on to complete a hard but productive day’s work.

So, busy, long, exciting… that’s what it’s like to work at Manchester United on deadline day.