First taste of journalism

On the 27th March 2010, at the age of 20 years 351 days, I finally found the job that I know I want to do for the rest of my life. No-one who was in the room (all professionals in this field) looked particularly rich or glamourous and the fact that I used to think this was important was completely ridiculous as I now realise. The event that took place was me going to do press coverage for the University's radio station for the football match between Swansea City FC (my own team who I love until my eventual death) and Ipswich Town at the Liberty Stadium. When I first got there I did what every true fan does and queued up outside the players entrance to meet my idols and get a few autographs. It was brilliant and having did this, it was lovely to go into the press room with all the professionals to find them watching the early match between Cardiff City and Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. I loved the fact that even though these guys watched football and lived football every day of their lives, they were still so interested in the sport itself and showed a genuine love for the game. I've always loved football and wanted to do something in relation to it and being a Sports Journalist just about seems perfect. Then lunch was served and I sat next to the Sky Sports team chatting away and they told me all their brilliant stories from the years that they had been doing the job. The stories only made me even more sure this was for me. Having done all the preliminary stuff, I went upto my seat in the Press box and watched what was a game with little incident, although for me it was enjoyable to see my team play for free. It was also nice to take notes on the game although not a lot happened as I alluded to earlier. I then got to go into the Press conferences with Roy Keane and Paulo Sousa and it was interesting to see first hand what each manager thought of the game and thought of the other team and although I didn't ask Mr Keane a question, when Paulo took his seat and had done his talking, I stuck my hand up to ask a question. Now, I didn't honestly think I'd get a chance to ask a question of Paulo given the fact that there were actual professional journalists sat in the room with me, but amazingly, and even though Paulo must have known I was a rookie, he gave me a chance to ask a question of him. Having put my question to Paulo, I sat back and watched him confidently answer my question whilst all the time giving me his attention and I felt that this was something lovely of him to do because he honestly didnt need to give a rookie journalist the chance to ask a question which could've ruined the press conference. I then left with a sense of finally having found my calling and I now hope to make this my profession in the future. To get paid to have this amazing experience every week, well theres not a lot else I can really say about that now is there