Day 8/9 and 10: The Office and Wimbledon

What a contrast between these three days. Day 8/9 was pretty much spent in the office whereas the following day I had the opportunity to go to Wimbledon for the first time.

I’ll keep Days 8/9 short as I’m sure you would like to know what I did at SW19. On both days, I wrote articles for the Sky News billboard. These included a preview on the games featuring Brazil, Portugal and Spain as well as Roger Federer’s second round victory.

Day 10 was similar to the day when I met Boris Becker and attended the Wimbledon Ladies Night. I went into the office expecting to be writing more articles for the billboard. But then I had an offer that I could not refuse.

Going to Wimbledon for the first time was an exciting prospect and to be honest I was not disappointed. I don’t know why I say this but there is something special about Wimbledon compared to other sporting events I have been to e.g. Football matches, British Grand Prix in 2007 and 2009 etc. Everywhere I went there always seemed to be a buzz.

On the smaller courts like Courts 7-19, you were very close to the action and this is what makes Wimbledon so special. I did manage to watch the Venus Williams game on Court No.1 and the atmosphere was second to none. I loved every moment of my time at SW19 and it will be another day that will live long in the memory. I even went on Murray Hill to soak up the atmosphere.

I just hope this visit is the first of many trips down to Wimbledon and I seriously would recommend people to go to the British home of tennis. Believe me it will be worth it. Even if you have to spend a fair bit to get in then do it.

I will upload my images on my Facebook profile so watch this space.

Cheerio.

Day 7: Decent day at the office

Yes it was another day spent at Sky News HQ in Osterley but I was given plenty of things to do to keep me occupied.

Since England are playing Slovenia tomorrow (Those who read this will realise that this game will be on the same day as I upload this blog), the editor told me to dig in for some information about England’s final group opponents. Might sound boring but it wasn’t actually.

To be honest there was plenty of sport taking place e.g. World Cup, Wimbledon as well as the cricket one day international between England and Australia down at The Rose Bowl in Hampshire.

I was told to focus on the Serena Williams game. Serena did make light work of Michelle Larcher De Briter in the first set although the 17-year old did make a better fist of it in the second set.

Williams however came through the game with flying colours and showed her Championship credentials. The final task I had to do was write a single article on the France-South Africa game in addition to the Uruguay-Mexico game.

I basically had to watch two games at the same time which was pretty hard. However I was mainly focusing on the South Africa game so I did not have to write much on the Uruguay game.

It would have been a fairytale if Bafana Bafana qualified for the second round but it was just not to be. At half time I was thinking you know what maybe the South Africans can pull it off. Had Katlego Mphela put away his early chance in the second half then Bafana Bafana would have only required one more goal.

Once Florent Malouda scored for France, it was always going to be difficult for South Africa to do something special. Nonetheless beating a team like France is not a bad result at all for the South Africans.

Where do you start with France? I’m not going to write an essay on this but everything just went wrong for them on and off the pitch. I’m sure many of the French fans will be pleased to see the back of Raymond Domenech and hope that Laurent Blanc can do a better job.

Fingers crossed England can do the job tomorrow and put in a better performance than they put in against Algeria. Anything less than a win, then Fabio Capello’s side could be heading for an unexpected early exit. Capello could also be axed as England manager. I hope not. Come on England!

Day 6: Busy sporting day

It was another day in the office but it was by no means a boring day. There were plenty of sporting events for the sports team to get their teeth into.

For much of the morning, I spent time on watching the Frank Lampard press conference as well as typing up an article on the France team resuming training. Whilst viewing the Lampard conference, I made notes based on what the Chelsea man said and when he made interesting points.

The Wimbledon tournament got underway today so as well as focusing on the World Cup we also had to note down what was happening at SW19. I made notes on Elena Baltacha’s match against Petra Martic and like the press conference I noted down the key moments. Unfortunately from a British perspective, Baltacha was beaten in three sets despite winning the first one.  

After watching the British No.1 crash out in the First Round, I then saw Roger Federer’s game against Alejandro Falla.  By the time I tuned in, Falla was already one set up and when the Colombian won the second I just thought to myself could the shock be on here. However you cannot afford to underestimate Federer and at one point Falla was serving for the match. Federer won the third and fourth set and from there it seemed there would be only one outcome.

Falla for sure made it difficult for Roger and the Colombian should be very happy with his display despite losing the game. I’m sure many of Federer’s future opponents may look back at this game to see where they can exploit Roger’s weaknesses. Federer is not invincible but I still fancy him to go far in this tournament.

I mainly focused on Wimbledon although I did see the Portugal-North Korea game as well as keeping up to date with the Chile-Switzerland game.

End of Day 6, not a bad day at all. It could have been worse but I had plenty to keep me occupied.

Day 4/5 Best time of my life

Well Day 4 in the end proved to be a day that will live long in my memory and a day that I will never forget.

I just imagined it would be another day in the office and getting more practice with video editing. However when the Sports Editor asked me whether I would like to shadow a journalist to the Boris Becker tennis masterclass and to the Wimbledon Ladies Night, I could not refuse.

These were the types of opportunities I was hoping for when starting my placement at Sky News. The Boris Becker masterclass was fantastic and Becker came across as a very good speaker. This is probably down to the fact that he has many media commitments. He will be part of the BBC’s coverage of this years Wimbledon. Meeting Becker was a total pleasure and I had the privilege of shaking his hand. That was just the start of a memorable day. Wimbledon Ladies Night anyone?

Since we recorded the masterclass and interview that Jacqui Beltrao did with Boris, I was given the responsbility of giving the tapes to Sky Sports News. They wanted to broadcast some of the footage that was recorded on the day.  I was rushing to get to the Ladies Night simply because Jacqui told me she would be interviewing Russian star Maria Sharapova at the Kensington Roof Gardens.

Unfortunately when I did get there, Jacqui had already interviewed Maria and I was gutted! Nonetheless my spirits were still high and I was thankful that I was given the chance to attend this prestigous event. I went with the cameraman to record some the stars that were coming to the event. The number of photographers who attended was quite something. The amount of shouting they did when trying to tell the stars to turn their way was pretty loud. Seemed like a very feisty bunch to me.

Some of the stars I saw were Ana Ivanovic, Serena and Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Sugababes, Bruce Forsyth, Caprice and many more. To be honest I was starstruck and could not believe the number of celebs who attended. It was a long day but in the end it was worth it.

I’ll keep Day 5 short. I was mainly getting use to video editing once again and being introduced to scripts as to what the presnters read off when presenting the news. It was not a bad day by any means but it was kind of back down to earth. But still there was plenty of banter to keep me going.

Shame that the week went too quick but hopefully the next two weeks will still be as memorable as my first week. Cheerio!

Day 3: Difficult but rewarding in the end

Swiss Delight

Most of day 3 was pretty much spent on Clip Edit (Another form of software for TV editing) and me getting use to it.

I was just trying to mainly get my head around the different features on Clip Edit. It did take a while to understand what Clip Edit is all about but what I learnt proved to be valuable. I was told that I may well be editing clips for live sports bulletins next week so it could turn out to be a hard but rewarding week.

I will of course have to work to deadlines but this is what I will have to do week in week out if I want to be in the sporting media world. In the afternoon I managed to initially edit highlights of the Chile and Honduras game to just under two minutes. I was then told to cut it down to 30 seconds since this fixture was not the main game of the day. The editing took place whilst the game was happening so as well as watching the game I also edited the key highlights at the same time.

Using Clip Edit was the first time that I was editing for Television even though I did do some TV editing in my first year of A Levels and some in my Online Journalism module in the second half of this years semester at Birmingham City University.  I have no idea what I will be doing tomorrow but I presume that I will be getting more practice on Clip Edit.

By the way what a cracking result for Switzerland against Spain. That was a real turn up for the books and I’m hoping this result revives the 2010 World Cup because there have not been many great games so far. Yes Spain did have their chances but at the end of the day they did not find the back of the net and you have to give credit to the Swiss.

I’ll be back tomorrow about my tales of day 4. Cheerio for now!

Day 2: Keep it coming

Fabio Capello

My second day at Sky News with the Sports team was not quite as eventful as yesterday but there were plenty of things that I did to keep me occupied for the whole day.

Obviously with the World Cup on, I did three articles on this topic. Spain get their World Cup campaign underway tomorrow against Switzerland and I wrote a piece about Spain attempting to step forward and claim their first World Cup crown (This blog will be uploaded on the same day as Spain play).

I will come to the second article after but my final article focused on Australia’s bid to host the football World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. Frank Lowy who is a member on the FIFA board as well as being an Australian-Israeli businessman feels that Oz can host major events as we saw with the Olympics in Sydney back in 2000. Personally I feel that Australia might just have an outside chance of having the opportunity to host the World Cup in 2022.

Since this years World Cup is taking place in South Africa, it is probable that the 2018 World Cup will be given to a European country (Fingers crossed it is England). The Aussies have already proven that they can do it and I would not be surprised if they did come out victorious in their bid to host the World Cup in 2022 (Will probably be annoying for us Brits to have to either stay up late or get up in the early hours).

Finally my second article was based on England and Peter Crouch saying that Fabio Capello has told his side to stay optimistic despite their 1-1 opening draw against the USA. To be honest the result against the US was not ideal but it was not disastrous. As long as Capello’s side beat Algeria and Slovenia then that is fine. But they do need to improve and be more lethal when in front of goal. Obviously you cannot afford to make any major blunders like Robert Green did on the big stage otherwise it could cost you. 

Not forgetting I saw the New Zealand-Slovakia game and the much hyped Ivory Coast – Portugal clash. So not a bad day overall then.  

That’s all I have to say for today but I’ll be back to let you know what my third day was like.

Day 1: Unbelievable

One word to sum up how I am feeling after day 1: Brilliant

To be honest I can’t believe I am at Sky News working for the Sports team and this is a dream come true. Watching the FIFA World Cup and keeping track of what is happening in the sporting world and reporting for a channel like Sky News would be something I’m sure many people in life would like to do. That is exactly what I will be doing for the next three weeks.

The World Cup, Wimbledon, and the British Grand Prix coming soon, I could not have picked a better time to be at Sky News. There may be the possibility that I might just find myself at SW19 next week. If I do go, then this will be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I don’t intend to miss this chance.

My first day started with me meeting the sports team and attending a Health and Safety briefing. All the staff were very friendly and made me feel welcome. There was plenty of football banter between us and some immature behaviour! (Not including me).

Even though it was my first day, I managed to complete two articles. I felt pretty pleased with the ways things went on my first day and I hope this is just a sign of things to come.

I am totally privileged to be working for a company like Sky News and I want to enjoy it whilst I can. If any huge opportunities come about then I will not be hanging about and I will take these chances if they do come. In life I never want to regret anything and I want to make the most out of my time at Sky.

I’ll be back soon to talk about my second day. Hopefully I will have plenty more to talk about.