Like so many of us, Paul Grogan spends most of his time at home these days.
With three kids being home-schooled by his wife Marian, they have had to get better at multitasking – sharing the chores whilst running two businesses.
On this particularly wintry January afternoon in Radcliffe, Paul’s got the phone in one hand and cutlery in the other, making his youngest son’s lunch as he talks.
“Working from home with three kids here… there’s always a lot going on as you can imagine,” he chuckles.
For a man who’s spent a huge chunk of his life exploring the outdoors taking photos, the past year has been quite the adjustment for Paul.
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The pandemic has domesticated even the biggest nomads – but it’s been particularly challenging for photographers who ordinarily rely on the freedom to roam in return for a paycheque.
“[COVID] has impacted everything quite significantly for me,” Paul tells us.
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“I’m quite fortunate in that I own a branding and web design agency, so I have income from there. But I know a lot of photographers who have really struggled.”
“Ever since the tiers were brought in, we haven’t been able to leave our boroughs.
“I know it’s technically work, but I still shouldn’t be going from Manchester to the Lake District just to take some photographs, should I?
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“We need to stay local.”
Due to the ongoing national lockdown; Paul is confined to his market town in Bury for the foreseeable future.
For a photographer, there are much worse places to be, of course.
“There’s plenty of really cool buildings knocking about in Radcliffe,” Paul says.
“It’s a place that’s stuck in time a bit.
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“It doesn’t have the clamour of Prestwich and Whitefield. That will change eventually, I think, but for the time being we’ve still got these interesting 70s and 80s vibes that make it quite an interesting looking place… especially when the light catches it just right.”
Paul has grabbed some snaps of his local town and the surrounding greenery on his weekend lockdown walks, but many of his most famous images were captured pre-COVID nine miles south in the rainy metropolis of skyscrapers and lights.
For the past twenty years, Paul’s been taking the kind of landscape photos of Manchester city centre that strike a chord with locals and out-of-towners alike – selling hundreds to people right around the world.
Paul’s prints have been sent to addresses in the States, Canada, Australia, States, Spain, Norway and Germany; and copies of his hugely-successful Made of Manchester Photobook were even purchased by airline Virgin Atlantic for passengers taking flights to Manchester.
It’s the kind of track record that puts Paul among the top local photographers of current times.
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But his biggest project is only just getting started.
Paul has been given the great responsibility of producing a Manchester edition for Fotovue – one of the most popular, widely-published city and country guidebooks available.
“The book will include lots of things for people to look out for in Manchester,” Paul explains.
“It’s a proper guidebook.
“The whole thing will be done over a longer period of two or three years and it’ll involve going to certain spots at certain times; for example Salford Quays at sunrise or Ancoats in the evening when the sun is coming down the streets.”
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Paul refers to these types of areas as ‘Honeypot locations’ – places where there are lots of opportunities for good photos, or ‘more honey for the bees’.
It’s a fitting statement to describe Manchester. Worker bees are a symbol of unity in adversity here; with Mancs prideful hanging images of the yellow and black insects up in their homes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of Paul’s most popular photos is a shot of a bee statue taken from the Town Hall.
“I’d been attending a wedding as a guest, and thought ‘oh, that looks nice’, shot it and carried on,” Paul says.
“I didn’t think it was particularly exciting at the time.”
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But this simple shot – dipped in a honey-glazed hue – has become iconic; with copies being shipped off to all four corners of the globe.
A few years prior, Paul also saw huge demand for his bee prints in the midst of the Arena Bombing. But on this occasion he refused to take the money.
“I decided I can’t profit off this,” he stated.
“I donated all that money to the charity set up by Manchester City Council.
“It’s important to do these kinds of things.”
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Paul’s career as a photographer has taken him to almost everywhere in Manchester; up to the roof of Piccadilly Tower; into the city’s nooks and crannies; and even onto book pages alongside the Tony Walsh poem ‘This is the Place’.
But when it comes to defining what makes Manchester quite so photogenic, Paul doesn’t think there’s any single right answer.
“Manchester’s definitely got something special… but there’s so much about it,” he says, racking his brains.
“We’re the first industrial city. We invented the global economy. A lot has changed here since the late eighties early 90s with the music which obviously started it all. But it’s retained a lot of its decrepit, decaying stuff, too.
“If you go to Spinningfields at the right time of day you can pick out the juxtaposition between new and old; a shiny building close to a shutter that hasn’t been open for 30 years.
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“But then, there’s the industrial heritage in Ancoats, too, and the gorgeous old buildings still standing. St John St Hotel is one. And the Hatters Hotel – that’s a stunning building. In another city it would be a boutique hotel that locals couldn’t afford to use. It’s great that it’s retained a degree of its authenticity.”
Hopefully, it won’t be too long before Paul is allowed to venture back out into the city and snap more photos for the world to feast their eyes upon.
When he does, he’ll be considering the same ingredients as always: Looking; lighting; and luck.
“Getting good photos is a mix of knowing what you’re looking for and getting the right light,” Paul tells us.
“That photo caught on the corner of Deansgate – Manchester in the rain – is a perfect example of right place, right time. It’s a fantastic photograph.
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“That’s the thing about Manchester. There are proper little nuggets you can find everywhere.
Football fans are debating whether Manchester City made a mistake selling Cole Palmer
Danny Jones
Football clubs are always going to have to roll the dice on players as we all know promising players who went on to become stars: Kevin de Bruyne, Gerard Pique, Mo Salah and so on just to name a few from the Premier League – but is that what Manchester City have done with Cole Palmer?
The 21-year-old from Wythenshawe was sold to Chelsea back in September 2023, having only managed to make a few scattered but impressive appearances for Man City, scoring crucial goals in the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup, but was still ultimately deemed surplus to requirements.
Shown the exit through nothing other than the sheer quality of Pep Guardiola‘s starting XI, not to mention plenty of strength in depth and quality off the bench already, the West London club paid what looked to be a handsome £42.5 million for the still relatively unproven youngster at the time.
However, with another hattrick to his name – a perfect one scored all inside half an hour, no less – and a fourth for good measure thanks to a penalty against Everton, he’s quickly become by far and away Chelsea‘s star man.
In the same breath, many are now naturally wondering why he was sold in the first place. It’s no secret that City are spoilt for choice when it comes to talent amongst their ranks and certainly didn’t need the money from his sale; it was simply a case that Palmer wanted more minutes that Pep couldn’t promise.
Shouldering the responsibility for the decision at the time, Guardiola said he completely understood the Manchester-born and bred star’s drive and ambition, admitting that “[With] young players, we always want them to stay but this is normal.
“After one season it is nice, and the second season, but the third season it is, ‘Oh guys, I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench’. It’s normal. We understand as a club. We got an offer from an incredible top club like Chelsea and I’m really happy for him. In all clubs these types of things happen.”
However, we dare say that if you were to tell the Catalan coach that same hungry prospect would end up being joint top-scorer with his Erling Haaland the following season and being, we think it’s fair to say he might at least hesitate before green-lighting his departure – and there are plenty more stats to boot.
Now, it’s impossible to know whether or not having the knowledge he has now would have made Pep second-guess his decision and take a chance on integrating Cole Palmer into City’s first team more regularly but put it this way, 25 goals and 13 assists in all competitions is hard to ignore.
That’s all inside what is for all intents and purposes his full debut season as a first-team starter (which isn’t even over yet), let’s not forget, and while they’ve had similar situations play out with the likes of Jadon Sancho in the past, it must be a little frustrating to see him playing this well in the same only league only in a darker shade of blue.
On the other hand, it’s still early days Palmer could also follow that same narrative even further and see that huge momentum trickle out depending on how his sophomore season goes. He’s also a boyhood Man United fan and not that we’re saying we can see him make that move down the line, but we all know how that switch sadly ended up for Sancho.
For many fans, City or otherwise, the logic seems to be that letting him go was the right decision for everyone, as it’s allowed him to get that crucial playing time and shine like he has this season, which may not have happened while waiting to grab his opportunity off the bench at the Etihad.
Moreover, it’s not like the treble-winners aren’t still looking like they could defend all three of their trophies this year – although it would be interesting to see what impact Palmer has when he comes up against his former club in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend.
What do you think, were City right to sell Cole Palmer or should they have held on to him and given him the minutes he was clearly more than ready for?
Remember when the Manchester Marathon used to be too short?
Danny Jones
One of the most popular runs in the UK returns this weekend as the 2024 Adidas Manchester Marathon gets underway on Sunday morning, but did you know the famous race was once too short to count as the full shebang?
Yes, it may very be one of the flattest and most accessible races anywhere in Europe but once upon a time the Manchester Marathon was technically a marathon, as those in charge of measuring the thing up didn’t quite nail it.
One job, guys. You had one job…
Here’s the story of for three whole years, tens of thousands of runners sadly didn’t technically complete the Manchester Marathon.
Manchester Marathon: The ‘ish’ years
As was widely publicised at the time, in 2016 it was found that roughly the three previous years of the race course that runs throughout Manchester city centre, into the likes of Trafford, Chorlton, Altrincham and beyond didn’t actually fulfil the complete distance needed to qualify as a marathon.
While the race route has to stretch for 26.2 miles, or approximately 42.195 kilometres if you prefer metric (always one that splits the crowd) to count as an official marathon, it turned out that in 2013, ’14 and ’15, Manchester’s biggest running event fell just short of that mark.
Due to a measuring error – for which blame was placed on the Association of UK Course Measurers (AUKCM), who said an accredited measurer had ridden the course in 2013 but fell foul to an error in the calibration of the bicycle wheel – those three years ended up being 380m too short.
As a result, roughly 24,000 runners who ran the Manchester Marathon during this three-year period essentially had their races voided, including plenty of elite athletes, as the official UK Athletics governing body simply could not recognise their times. How fuming would you be?
Speaking in an official statement at the time, AUKCM said they regretted the mistake, confessing: “Significant errors in measurement are rare – our procedures are designed to find them at the reporting or checking stages”.
Xtra Mile Events, who were still the organisers of the event at the time, went on to add: “We all understand the anguish and huge disappointment this creates and want to assure our runners that we share the upset and emotion from the AUKCM news regarding the race distance.”
Thankfully, such mistakes haven’t been suffered since and now under the umbrella of sporting giants Adidas, you won’t catch them making the same slips-ups.
Best of luck to all of you racing this Sunday and rest easy in the knowledge that while you might be absolutely dying by those last few miles, at least you can be sure those every one of those final yards is going to count. Now go and smash it!