Imagine a new football department, they said.

Imagine hiring some of the best journalists in the country.

Imagine having the time and resource to plan and execute in-depth articles in a world where West Bromwich Albion matter just as much as Manchester United, where the inside story at Burnley is put together with the same passion as the lowdown on the latest managerial change at Chelsea.

Imagine ignoring the world of sensationalism and trying to share better – and untold – stories. Trying to stand out in the clickbait crowd.

No, this is not a bad reworking of a John Lennon song. It’s The Athletic UK and from today we are bringing our journalism to you. We’ve put a lot of love, effort and care into it to even get to Day One so I hope you enjoy it.

What are you going to get? Well, it depends what you want, really. You can follow our Premier League feed and get the best stories, analysis, features, interviews and long reads on every team from award-winning writers up and down the country. Today, for starters, we have exclusive interviews with Liverpool chairman Tom Werner, Dortmund’s Mario Gotze and Leicester’s new signing Ayoze Perez. There is also fascinating insight into Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Tanguy Ndombele, the tactical underpinning of Manchester City’s title-winning defence and what really happens at clubs in the transfer window (and yes, set-piece bonuses for players are a thing).

This is all just the tip of the iceberg.

Is the Premier League not your thing? Try our Football League or Scottish Premiership feeds. There’s so many huge clubs, so often ignored, who we will be covering in depth.

Or if you’re a bit more partisan than that, don’t bother. Just follow your team. Love Leeds? We’ve got Phil Hay for you. Obsessed by Liverpool? We’ve signed James Pearce and Simon Hughes. Think this is Sheffield Wednesday’s year? We have Nancy Frostick dedicated to nothing else all season. The list of our brilliant writers is too long to run here but you will be reading calm, considered, intelligent articles on your team from the best in the business. They’ll know the manager, the players, the men and women behind the scenes, the things that are upsetting or pleasing the fans. They will live and breathe your club.

And that doesn’t just mean British clubs. This is the only place you can read Rafa Honigstein on German football. We have multi-lingual experts who will be filing from across the globe to bring you stories you need to hear.

Prefer women’s football? We are employing Kieran Theivam as one of the only full-time writers on the subject in the country as we watch to see how much the game grows after the World Cup. There are so many great stories to tell.

Of course, the other way to enjoy all this is to just follow the writers you like. Maybe you only want to read tactics pieces by Michael Cox or columns by award-winning journalists Daniel Taylor and Oliver Kay. It would be a shame to miss out on the rest, but we’re not here to judge.

You can also be part of an exclusive club. Our writers will do weekly live Q&As, they’ll answer your questions on key issues and they’ve got something really special lined up on transfer deadline day.

Most importantly we want to inform and entertain you and tell stories that you’ll love. It’s our passion and we’ll give all our time, energy and ideas to make that happen.

We have the (second) greatest job in the world – come on, the players live the real dream – and we can’t wait to share our work with you.

I hope you love reading it half as much as we love putting it together.

Alex Kay-Jelski, Editor-in-chief, The Athletic UK & Europe

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