“Ian, do you fancy taking care of our second year students’ ‘talk radio’ course for a few weeks?”
After 25 years plus at the coal face, few things within the sphere of broadcasting and football should make your eyes go as wide as dinner plates, but when old press box colleague and senior lecturer Brendan McLoughlin at the University of Gloucester got in touch before Xmas with the above question, I had to take a brief pause from whatever I was doing at the time!
I’ve gone into UOG before (as well as University of Birmingham under the auspices of another press box chum and senior lecturer there in Chris Lepkowski) to lecture students as a guest of my friends who have been running media courses over the last few years for students at various points in their uni life, but I’d never suspected that I would be asked to RUN a course, even if only temporarily as in this case whilst one tutor takes a short leave of absence.
When you’re broadcasting a commentary at a match, loads of ears (hopefully) are tuned to you, yet no eyes are trained on you in the stadium and I relax into that role with no real issues. The nerves that conversely kick in when just 22 young sets of eyes are staring at you from a classroom is a far nervier experience, I can tell you!
The nerves are compounded by knowing that you are in charge of how the weekly lessons pan out and trying to find ways to engage your class in activities that replicate as closely as possible what can happen in sports broadcast journalism.
Thankfully the 2nd year students I’ve been working with appear - on the face of it - to have enjoyed the content of my Monday mornings with them-we’ve covered the art of the post-game interview (how to properly quiz a manager like Ruben Amorim 15 minutes after a massive game for his side), writing 30-second ‘on the whistle’ match reports, and the distinctions I believe are required between providing radio and tv commentary for sports like football.
The ladies and gents in the class ask pertinent questions and seem to have a good instinct for knowing what each broadcasting discipline needs to go well, even if it isn’t their No.1 skill set.
These courses and the top grade facilities that the likes of UOG/UOB have give undergraduates the very best chance to develop their skills and knowledge and experience in a variety of scenarios. There are radio and TV studios available to use with state of the art equipment, so hands-on broadcasting in sound and vision is so easy to replicate
I had to learn about the complexities of such things ‘on the hoof’ as it were back in 1998/99 as my BRMB life began with many different tests set before me that I just had to figure out blind; how the desk worked; how the wireless system in the Flying Eye relayed signal back to base; how to keep a travel bulletin as short as you were told by the producer seconds before you delivered it; how to troubleshoot when your match day reporting equipment either could not connect to base or malfunctioned. There was no training manual for this kind of stuff a quarter of a century ago…now most of the answers are provided in these all-encompassing courses!
A number of the students I’ve lectured to before now both in Cheltenham or Birmingham have gone on to start fledgling careers in sports journalism and that’s a sure sign that what Brendan and Chris provide for their students give them so much of what they need to make headway once they’ve graduated. And sports media is a hugely competitive industry to try and break into as you might imagine.
Chris Ford and Ivor Richards at UOG have been of invaluable assistance to me these past few weeks. You’ll know Chris as a regular reportage voice on EFL highlights shows and he also tutors in Cheltenham. Ivor is there to assist with my engineering and production requirements-both gentleman have helped me so so much in dipping my toe into this world and I thank them both dearly.
I have one more class to present on Monday of next week and I hope I’ve given the students some good advice and pointers in as many aspects of the industry as I can based on my experience and knowledge. It would be lovely to think that just one of those 22 in this group might one day be sat in the same press box or press conference as me, fulfilling their ambitions as they plot a course through this most challenging of careers!