Premier League Nights, European Adventures & a Content Team on the Rise: Inside Nottingham Forest with George Harbey

From writing fake match reports as a kid to running social and editorial at a Premier League club, George Harbey’s journey is a story of persistence, passion, and putting in the reps.

In this Industry Insider, George shares what it’s like to manage Nottingham Forest’s content output across matchdays, social media, the club website, and more – plus the lessons he’s learned from the press box, the training ground, and the pitchside lens.

Tell us about yourself, what do you do in your current role and what roles have you done previously?

My name’s George Harbey and I’m Senior Social Media and Editorial Manager at Nottingham Forest.

I’m now into my fourth year working at Forest having previously worked for Snack Media, producing written and social content for Football League World.

I joined Forest in 2021, initially as Media Operations Manager before becoming Social Media Manager in February 2023. Now, in my current role, I’m responsible for managing the day-to-day operation and output across the club’s social media channels, website, app and matchday programme.

My role is quite varied, from capturing, ideating, planning and publishing content across our platforms, to focusing on content strategy and how we look to continue growing our channels and hit our KPI targets as a marketing and content team.

What three words would you use to describe your role?

Busy, enlightening, rewarding!

“Normal” isn’t a thing in sport so what does an “average” week look like for you? 

Over the course of the week, my role is split across planning meetings, capturing and publishing content across our social media channels and website, as well as editing and managing the delivery of our matchday programme for when we have a home fixture.

Our weeks are very much centred around matchdays – of which there are plenty now our first team are playing in Europe!

At the start of each week, we’ll meet as a team and discuss the week ahead. This largely involves all sub teams of our marketing and content department, such as socials, web, video and digital marketing. We’ll look at what the weekly schedule looks like across our men’s, women’s and academy teams, what commercial products we need to push ahead of a particular game, what content opportunities there may be around each game, and we’ll then create a social, editorial and marketing plan from that. No two days are the same when you work in football, but I think it’s beneficial to look as far ahead as you can and have as clear a structure and plan as possible, knowing what needs to be done not just in the build-up to each matchday but other notable events too.

We’ll also meet as a team every Wednesday with our data analyst, where we reflect on the previous week, look at what performed best, what we can improve and how we compare to our KPI targets set for the season.

Then of course, it’s matchday, my favourite day of the week! My role on a matchday varies each game and I’m either based up in the press box publishing content across our channel feeds, or I’m more hands-on capturing content in and around the stadium pre-match and from a pitchside position during the match.

How did you end up where you are right now? When did you know you wanted to work in sport?

Probably like many people reading this, I am, and always have been, obsessed with sport, and especially football. I’m not sure what drove me towards the media aspect of it, but I remember when I was young, I’d always commentate on my FIFA matches, write out Teletext scores and fake match reports for Premier League games. I told you I was obsessed!

I think my ambition to work in sport certainly heightened when I was in the latter stages of secondary school. I always knew I was nowhere near good enough to play football, but I always wanted to be involved in it in some way and feel a part of that behind-the-scenes matchday and team environment.

Looking back, I took quite a risk in not applying for university ahead of finishing sixth form, but I knew I wanted to gain experience as soon as I could and throw myself into the industry straight away. That’s when I pursued freelance work at Snack Media, writing 15 to 30 articles per day for the company’s EFL dedicated website, Football League World.

After a year freelancing for Snack, I was fortunate enough to land a full-time role with the company as Editorial Assistant, which also coincided with the website gaining Data Co accreditation. This allowed me to attend matches as a journalist, exposing me to the live matchday environment, writing match reports and interviewing various players and managers.

During the dreaded lockdown season, I decided to focus on covering primarily one team, attending every Forest match home and away. That helped me to build a relationship with the club’s media team, and when an opportunity arose to join them the following season, I didn’t hesitate to apply.

I joined Forest as Media Operations Manager, which involved me setting up press conferences, editing the matchday programme and overseeing manager and player media activity. It was a really rewarding role that gave me an immediate taste of what it was like to be part of a media team and work for a football club. Then, having had a taste of being “admin” and managing the social channels during our promotion-winning season (including in the play-off final at Wembley!) I had the opportunity to become Social Media Manager the following campaign.

I’ve always relished the buzz and adrenaline that comes from producing content for huge audiences online and there are few bigger stages than the Premier League, so to play a part in managing our social and editorial output is something that gives me real joy.

So, to answer the initial question, how did I end up where I am right now? I suppose through hard work, belief and following a childhood dream, with a little bit of fortune along the way!

What is your number one focus when it comes to your work?

In terms of the role itself, it’s helping to continue to grow the Forest brand. I think we’ve done a great job putting the club “back on the map” and reintroducing Forest to the footballing world since returning to the Premier League after spending 23 years outside of it, but such is the magnitude of social media today, there are still so many audiences to reach and engage with.

Away from the role and more generally though, I aim to be a good colleague first and foremost. Working in football is such a relentless job in which you put so many hours into, therefore being a positive person who works hard and keeps the spirits of those around them high, especially during the longer tricky months, is someone who I look to be every day.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career so far?

Not every post will get the reaction you were hoping for.

There have certainly been times where I’ve expected a piece of work that I’ve put a lot of time into to take off and perform well, but the result turned out to be not as great as first imagined.

It’s important not to get bogged down by it and let it affect you. As long as you stay authentic and true to your company’s brand/identity, results will come. Mistakes are natural and bound to happen!

What are you excited about in your industry at the moment?

Working in social media is so interesting in the sense that every day there are new trends, new platforms and new technology to learn and get to grips with.

I personally think the emergence of AI and the way it’s being used is something that is particularly interesting, especially how it’s being used to streamline workflows i.e. tagging, cropping and cutting videos, allowing for more creativity elsewhere. I think it’s only going to get bigger as time goes on!

In terms of the sport industry, well we’re playing in Europe for the first time in 30 years this season, so I’m really looking forward to that side of things.

Sport is a hectic industry, what do you do to switch off?

Admittedly, when you work in football and your life away from work is football, I do often find it hard to switch off!

But you must recharge the batteries when you find some rare time off, and that largely consists of playing golf and padel to a very average standard.

Otherwise, I enjoy spending time with my friends, family and girlfriend, all of whom are very patient and understanding when it comes to my working hours. I’m immensely grateful for them.

If you were to give a piece of advice to someone wanting to do your role, what would you say?

Don’t give up, don’t have any regrets and give it everything you’ve got.

I think now more than ever, it’s tough to break into the sports media industry. I for one certainly doubted whether I’d be able to forge a career doing what I do, especially starting out in my bedroom with just my laptop and no previous experience, but as long as you keep believing in yourself and believe in what you want to do, that’s all that matters.

I’ve met some fantastic people through work – people who have given me advice and even opened doors to some fantastic opportunities, which I may never have had if I hadn’t plucked up the courage to reach out to them.

So don’t have any regrets, try to connect with as many people as you can, and most importantly, make the most of every opportunity you get!

How to follow George Harbey…

You can find me on LinkedIn – I love connecting with as many professionals in the industry as possible!

Otherwise, I’m @georgeharbey on both Instagram and X!

Like this conversation?

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