The Political Economy of Football Media: AI, Transfer Agendas, and Journalistic Precarity

This is The Guardian. Hello and welcome to The Guardian Football Weekly. The second male bag you are the hardcore. We are deep in the limbo between the World Cup and the domestic season returning as a result. Most of the questions you're sending us are about our favorite TV shows and sandwiches. We've waited through them all to find one or two about football, but don't worry, we'll get to where the Vera or the BLT comes out on top in part three. Hopefully you're listening to this on a beach somewhere after a cocktail or something nice. This is Today's Guardian Football Weekly. On the panel today, Barry Glenn Denning, welcome. Hello, Jonathan Wilson. Hello. Morning. How you doing? Very good. Hello, Jon Bruin. Hello there. And fresh energy. Seb Hutchinson. Hey, Seb. Hello. How are you? Yeah, very good. And we are recording this just after we recorded the first male bag. So this is still just after Argentina, not England out of the World Cup. You're fresh from the ITV football match. Can you tell us about the controversy? It's two weeks after the game happened now. So hopefully you're allowed to know this. When this goes out, okay. So yeah, I've got time. Yeah, Roy won't find out about this. So Roy was Roy Kean. He was nutmegged by Karen Karney. I saw it. Huge. Yeah. I saw it. Nobody filmed it. Karen saying she can't remember who she nutmegged, which doesn't help. Right. And Roy said it never happened. But I saw it happen. And I will go to court. A testify if I need to. Fine. And did you, would you go to, would you? So Roy is in the witness. Roy is, he's the defendant. Defending himself. You're in the witness. He's defending himself. Okay, so he hasn't gone. Lord, Lord Panic is not doing this one. He's there. That's not doing this one. I've been waiting for three years. Won't we hear? Yeah. Okay, big news for Roy Kean. Here's the first question from Barry Grogan. What's it all about? Life. I mean, do we have a purpose? Or are we just a random collection of cells here by luck and evolution? Jonathan Wilson. No, I think essentially just random. None of it means anything. Apart from my paycheck. Right. Yes, I thought that would come up pretty early. Does anyone have any more existential thoughts on the meaning of life, Barry? No, I don't have any plans. I just get up, try and get through the day and hopefully not upset anyone too much. That has always been possible. Sure enough, or staying in the United States. But I tried. John. Well, we are a series of chemical reactions, but I believe in emotion, human condition, family and friends. Those are the things that are important to me. This is the first human response we've had so far, which is good. Yeah, I'm not a man of faith or a spirit or anything like that, but yeah, I have an emotional side, and that's how it feels. And, you know, as animals have emotions too, but we have an innate sense of fairness and morals and sometimes that doesn't always go the wrong way, does it? But I'm maybe the wilcupism, microcosm of all that. Seb, just before John Answerday, he was looking out the window and I was worried for him there. I believe in the circle of life. Right, okay. Essentially, as said by Mufasa, in the line thing. No, not John. I went and John did write the lyrics, didn't he? Yeah, okay. But I believe in that. I believe that, you know, the antelope eat the grass and the lines eat the antelope and then the grass eats the lion when it dies in the soil. Everything breaks down. We just keep on going. And so the meaningless thing is important in the sense that we're just one drop in this ocean of the universe. Very complex drop, but still just a drop in the whole sense of time. And if I was to go back in time, someone has said to me, go back, do you know, 10 minutes in any time, I'd go back just 10 minutes and just have a look at a T-Rex and that's all, that'll be okay. Six hundred more. Bo and then I'd take it. Yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, the short piece. I mean, he was around. All right, show, well, what do I get to that? So it's interesting, like, young Ian Rushden, four and a half, obsession is with the solar system and the cosmos and space. And like, he has more knowledge of that than I do now. But when you do read about the plan, it's very hard to have this conversation without sounding like you've had your first joint. And you're, you're, you know, you're, you're, actually, I haven't, so that's fine. Max, that sounds like, it sounds like more of the conversation you'd have had when you've had a night of joints and you get to the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, you stuck with the stars. Yeah, no, you stuck with the bloke talking about the cosmos. And it's like, really, it's time to get a cabo, isn't it? All right, see, it's more like you're lying on the grass, you know, with the girl that you like looking at the stars going, isn't this amazing? But genuinely, you know, when, you know, he just says, you know, the sun is like, you know, the middle of the sun is 50 million degrees. And the nearest star to the sun is like, however many light years. And there are so many other stars. And this all began out of nothing and has been there forever. But when did forever begin? Then you do start to think, well, I don't know if it means there's a point, but you do start to have a slight existential crisis about what you're doing when you're going. Do you think Tieno Barry will get 11 goals this season forever? Don't you all like this? Is this really what I was put, these collections of cells to do on this Earth? The Canadian Bill Hicks used to do this routine. I just looked it up here as we got talking about this. But he used to complain that there were never any good news stories about drugs on the news, like drug use. It was all negative. And then he would imitate a newsread and go, today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather. William says, what's your non-footballing mastermind's subject? Okay, I put this out to all of you. So we'll start with Jonathan Wilson. Your name, please. Jonathan Wilson, your specialist subject. The life and works of Agatha Christie. One question on the life and works of Agatha Christie. Your time starts now. What is the precise idiosyncratic amount of money that Hercule Poirot famously insists his bank account must always hold? Bibib, Jonathan Wilson. You scored naught with one pass. The answer was 444 pounds, 4s, 4d. We'll go to you now, Broin. John Broin, what? You know that shillings and pens, Max. Yeah, fine. Uh, what is your name? John Broin, your specialist subject. Manchester Music, 1976 to 1991. John Broin, one question on Manchester Music, 1976 to 1991. Your time starts now. Joy Division made their live debut in 1977 at Manchester's Electric Circus, supporting Buzzcox, Penetration and John Cooper Clark. What name with the band using at the time? Warsaw. Correct. Well done. John Broin, you scored one. Uh, Seb, your name. Seb Hutchinson. Your specialist subject. The Hollywood Film Jurassic Park. Oh. Seb Hutchinson, the Hollywood Film Jurassic Park. One question, your time starts now. According to John Hammond's tour introduction, what was his very first attraction? Oh, it was a flea circus. Correct. Seb Hutchinson, you scored one point. Barry, to you, what is your name? Barry Glenn Denning. Your specialist subject. The complete works of James Harriet. I said, you, you also gave us your, uh, do you have a James Harriet question? You thrown Magnus, you thrown him. Is that right? Because you also gave your specialist subject, was the specialist subjects of other football weekly panelists? My original was the complete works of James Harriet. Barry Glenn Denning, the complete works of James Harriet. One question, your time starts now. What was James Harriet's real given name? Alph White. James Alfred White. I will give you that correct. Barry Glenn Denning, you scored one point. My, my specialist subject incorporates seven books, three different television series and a couple of movies. Uh, Seb's one movie. Yeah, mine, mine's over a hundred books. Yeah, but, but, but, but Jurassic Park is an all-time classic. Oh, the others. You can try the white one. Have you been on celebrity masterminds, Seb? No, no, no. All right, I'm big. Yeah, I'd love bail ringing. I, it's one of those things I'd love to go on. And then I'd, I'd cheat myself. So his lights went out. But like, here's a question. Wilson's separate, a specialist subject. I would consider myself quite the Urcule plural expert. And I didn't know the answer to that either. I had never even heard of that. So it's very difficult. Wonderful, Wilson. No, thank you very much. I appreciate your support. Did anyone know the flea circus? I didn't. I didn't. I never saw Jurassic Park. I'll come on, Wilson. Had, had the question been, what color are Hercule Poros little cells? I'd have got that one. They're gray, everybody. Aren't they? Um, uh, daggles rights. Regarding transfer journalists and the gossip pages. Is that mainly just guesswork? What was it to agents? The club's leak information. And if so, why? I understand why agents would. But what do clubs get from it? Um, I said, you're nodding. What do you know? Do you know? Agents are responsible for a high proportion of it nowadays. Because I think what's changed is because people can set their agendas online. They like to use that as a space. Uh, it does help club. Sometimes some director of football getting involved in it as well. Because again, it can help a football club in various ways. Because it is just one big commercial space. And that's that's that's the thing about it that. I mean, I don't particularly like. I just wait until it's all finished. And then make sure I know who's where. But I can see why it feeds people. They get excited because it's the possibility. Isn't it the hope? We could sign this player. We probably won't. And the player we do sign. We're not happy with. And then they might surprise us or let us down. Yeah, I was going to say, uh, there are certain operators out there that I don't have to name to the listeners who, uh, certain clubs and agents prefer to have, they prefer them to have the story first. That's what I'm told by those who operate. That's what your sources are telling you. Your sources are telling me. Yeah, and, uh, that, and, uh, there is a certain amount of cashier to have that news broken by those particular journalists. Um, and that's, that's often how it works, um, so that those who have operating that space in a slightly, I wouldn't, I'm not going to say less equality, unless it, uh, less of prominence. Find themselves a bit annoyed by this at times. Uh, I mean, this was clearly very good. People who work in that area. I mean, there's other people who, I think, do a lot of quid pro quo's, where they'll do an agent a favor, say by, uh, discussing the possibility of a player moving to a club to try and drum up interest or, or, you know, suggesting that players unsettle to try and drum up interest. And they're sort of, they're fee, if you like, for doing that, is to, you know, have the, have the wink tip. Does that phrase, um, when, when, when, when you're when an actual transfer is going through? I mean, I, some of what's interesting about some of them is when you occasionally talk to them, it does sound like they've never seen a football match. And like the end is, you know, the transfer is the end of the, that is the end of the thing. That is not a means to an end, but to build a football team. It is just this, it is just sort of, it's sort of human transaction obsession. It's quite strange. What's the new one is that if, if your club doesn't sign enough players, there's a problem for getting the fact that you already have players at your club. See what I mean? Yeah, I think they're not brought in one yet. Yeah. And Nikki, Nikki makes that really good point that you sort of see a football and you decide how good they are. And you do not count on us for that, that they could get better at football or worse at football or be put in a different system that might make them play better or worse. I'll put someone next to them. It's literally just, this is how good a person is. And if you don't spend 80 million on them, they're no good. If this player has been at your club for three years, it's not exciting. And we do get carried away with it a bit. I mean, right now, of course, the window will be whirring away. We will, of course, do all the transfers. Well, once we've found out who's bought who and we've committed it, baby, to memory, or Barry's put it on his pad of paper. We'll do some previews and talk about those things. We've got live shows. First of September at Vickers Street in Dublin. Ninth of September, so here's a ball from Stowe. Please go to the Guardian.co.uk. That's football weekly live. The London Show is live streamed as well. Watch it wherever you are on earth. And we'll be back in a second. Well, it's part two of the Guardian football weekly. Kelly says, Max Barry and everyone else. I'd never listened to the podcast before the World Cup. My brother, who was an Arsenal fan, recommended the podcast. To me, a few weeks ago, I was struggling to keep up with so many games. Since then, I've become a devoted daily listener. Now the World Cup's coming to an end. I've decided to arbitrarily pick a team to watch during the rest of the year. That's the added benefit of helping me follow along with football weekly in the future. Which team should I choose? So I guess we're talking Premier League. Seb, who do you think would be the best, who would be the most enjoyable team follow in the Premier League? Enjoyable. Yeah. Football work like that. Enjoyable. It depends on the stage. So Sunderland would have been enjoyable last season because they were promoted. They did better than the fans would have thought, the people thought, so they're on that ride. That's when it's at his best. But then the expectation sits in. And so you're done then, aren't you? You know, I would say the other problem is, did they say that their partner was an Arsenal fan? Now that's their brother, right? A brother, so that will play a part in it. If that's the person you're going to be discussing football with. Do you take Tottenham? Well, I don't know if that's an antagonistic angle. I don't know if it is because of where the clubs have been recently. So yeah, I would say just off the bat, why don't you go and support Bournemouth knowing that there's probably a new stadium coming. They'll probably buy a fresh player that nobody else has seen before and you can go there and you can have the heads up on everybody else and you can sound really knowledgeable about this player that nobody else has seen. And if you lose a game, nobody's going to bother you about it as well. And you'll be able to relax and enjoy your football. Good point. Any advices on Bournemouth? I was thinking Brighton for much the same reason, Seb has positive Bournemouth. And it's a nice club, decent team, good nice young manager. If they get beaten, you can go into town from the stadium and have a nice fish and chips and walk along the promenade. Good point. On the pier and they're probably not going to get relegated. They're probably not going to win anything, but it's nice, it's a nice team. Yeah, any advices? Go, complete the set, come with the B set, the coming, you see one more B. There's an airport nearby. As the world's living expert on B teams, it would be remiss of me to, I mean, yeah, Bournemouth is the nice one, it's in it, but I suppose they have a new manager. We'll have to see how that goes. As we've seen so many times in football, eventually the formula does break. I hope that doesn't happen to ball because I was privileged less season to see them play. I think the best football in the Premier League, the most exciting. But yeah, although you could do, you could, if you really wanted to have soap opera, you wanted to have enjoyment, or maybe an element of needle, everton or spurs, just for that. What are you doing to people? But I can't be interesting for you to know someone. How dare you, Barry? They are the team. You want to join our Prime Minister. So, you know, and I hope you can find out, it's all the same. It could be binface. You know, binface is presumably a latent or even fun, or something like that. But we don't know. But imagine being an everton fan when it actually become good again. It's a bit like being an English fan, you know. Unless you have anything strong to say, we'll just want to another question. Yeah, but okay, Dino says, hi, Max Barry and the team, I'm an avid listener from Perth, Western Australia. I was born in the UK. It was lovely to hear about the football fans in the UK. Struggle with the timings of World Cup matches. As this is something I have to deal with all the time when watching the Premier League. Question for the panel, which is different. How will AI change the way football is reported in the future? Do you use AI when creating your match reports or scripts? Will they come a time when you'll be able to feed in the live broadcasts before match? Create a match report with analysis within seconds. Jonathan Wilson, is your Ronaldo piece AI by now? Or is it still from your fair mind? The only time I'll ever use AI, and I'm pretty sure it'd be a sack of all the fans that the guardians use AI quite rightly. The only time I've ever used it was I had to write like this awful sort of pitch document for something where I had to sort of make myself sound good. And I spent sort of two or three hours on it. And you know, blow my own troubles just not my... It's just my humble, aren't you? You're too humble. I mean, obviously I hate to speak of my humility, but they're your words. They're not my... But I think humility is one of my defining characteristics. So I got AI to do that. And it was... Did it make you sound good? Did it make you sound good? I didn't get it. I can't remember what the pitch was. So I didn't get it anyway. So I obviously didn't make sound that good. But that's the same time I've ever used it. I mean, I guess there is a terrifying future when... I mean, AI clearly, I was replaced at the spot to the straight by AI. That was a... Gauling after 11 years. Didn't even get any emails saying thanks very much to just they stopped implying. They just blanked me. Stopped implying to my emails. So that's a American employee relations view. But I mean, it's obviously rubbish at the minute. It's totally generic based on a couple of stats. I guess it could get quite good, but I would have thought what you want. Maybe I'm... Maybe I'm flattening myself here that what people want is kind of sort of... The individuals take on it. The sort of quirks that you... You know that individual that... Yeah, basically, you know if I'm going to go... If I'm going to a Portugal game, you're going to get things like an Aldo. Yeah, I do. I get that. Yeah, I reckon there's enough out there. That's... But there are a lot of commentators. I don't want to worry you, sir. But do you remember, Max, when we went south, both south-west, we had to go to this dinner to glad hadn't some people who worked in AI. And it's very prominent in, say, tennis, golf, Formula One, I think. And there's AI commentary teams. I have no idea whether they're good or not. What I can tell you is that AI is rubbish at football. I've looked things up on AI sometimes. It's basically glorified Google. And the amount of very basic information that gets completely wrong is quite mind-blowing. Just really basic stuff. What players play for what teams who won last year's FA Cup? You're a really, really basic stuff. It gets wrong, so... Did you do play that says FA Cup for me? Good question. Flea circus. Flea circus. What do you think, Karl Barry? Can you get it? Can you get it? Can you get it? Oh, god. So, there's only going to be... It's going to be one of three, isn't it, probably? I think I know. I think I'm like 99 percent sure, but I don't want to laugh at you too much unless I don't get it. But let's all wait for Barry to get who won the FA Cup. Uh, who won the FA Cup? I'm not AI. Just... No, I know. You're not AI. I know that. So, I'll give an AI answer. West Ham won last year's FA Cup. All right, okay. Who did win the FA Cup this year's FA Cup? This year's FA Cup. City. No, Alex was the year before. It's Man City. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, last year's 2020 FA Cup, isn't it? I see, okay. All right, so you are taking it literally as AI. Yeah, I mean, I've never logged into AI, so I don't know. But hopefully, hopefully, it won't replace vanilla. Well, you have, Man, because if you look something up on Google, you get AI answers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you're using it without knowing it. Wow. Yeah, it's even worse. I was going to say that the occasionally scandals about people writing stuff in AI, and there are AI checkers where you can check whether your work comes out as AI. So, I put a match report from, born with or whatever, and it said it was 100% human written. So, I was delighted with that. But people, the trans, the press conferences, your phone and certain translating machines can do a reasonable job of this. But I think it was a pet quadriola press conference. So, that was out. And pet with AI was not great. So, I was sent a transcript by one of my colleagues and said, it's someone actually done this properly. It's actually got like a proper transcript to this. And I just got to reply to that. No, mate, we're all too lazy now. We just use AI. So, AI struggles with so, so, so good. It just can't compete of that. Craig says, Please, yeah, you're just called to Gemini. I go, please patronize Eddie out for 500 more years. Craig says, what's the panel's favorite sporting memory that doesn't involve football who wants to kick off on that? I know that one straight away. Limford Christie's gold in 92. And I'm basing this on the moment at the time. I was, oh my goodness, I was so happy. I was so happy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Because it's such a, obviously, such a simple sport to understand the 100 metres. But it just felt, I remember the, because I think the year before, maybe two years before this world championship and all the best runners were in it. And they were all went under 10 seconds. An amazing race. And you always felt, Linford was the nearly man in that group who wasn't quite able to get over the line. So, is that call Lewis Dennis? Call Lewis. Lee Waiparell was in there. And then is Fredericks. Thank you, Fredericks, it was always second. But I don't think, I'm trying to say, I don't think Barrel was in the Olympic final. But Dennis Mitchell was, Frankie Fredericks was. Carl Lewis was, wasn't his best. And I felt, and then the next year, Linford won the world championship and set a new 9.87 or something. And I've never seen anyone who wasn't American run that. So, I just remember at the time thinking, that's amazing. It was close behind that was just Frank Bruno winning his world title as well. Against McCall. He was hanging on. Did you remember this? Do you remember this? He was basically, he started the fight well. And then the last few rounds, it was just an absolutely knackered man hanging on and just waiting for the bill. And then when they went the bill where they just, and he was lucky because that title shot came because McCall would beat and then it's Lewis who had knocked out Bruno before. So, yeah, they're the ones for me. And you always go back to when you're younger, because you get pretty emotional, then. Though, on athletics, like the four by four, Chris like a boozey. Getting nice to one, is it? Good show. Is it Petagrew? Is it Anthony? Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no, it kind of beat up. Yeah, it's David Colwell. Absolutely, that is an amazing moment. Barry? Offly beating Limerick in the 1994 All-Arland Hurling Final. I was there at Crow Park. And Offly were dead and buried. And they scored two goals and six points in the last four minutes to win the game and snatch it from Limerick at the death. And that was a sense. That is my favourite sporting memory, including football. It's just my favourite sporting memory. Full stop. Wilson? Well, that I've been at. England beating Australia at Trent Bridge in 2005. When, I think we were chasing 127 and did the best to mess it up. And then Ashley Giles clubbed a boundary to win it. But I think, if you talk about what you're telling, it's definitely when you're younger. And I would say, Fowl though, holding the putt on the 11th at Augusta, the second playoff hole to beat Ray Floyd in 1990. I was partly because I was allowed to sit up late and watch the Masters and do something with me. My dad did every year. So it's partly that as much as Fowl though. On golf, the Constantino Rocker part. Is it the 80s, just an Andrews, to take it to a playoff. Maybe we're John daily. I can't remember. But he's like, it is, it might be 60 feet, it might be 100 feet. I don't know how long the putt is. But he beats the ground. Like when it goes in, he is on the floor beating the ground. It's just an, it's an umbrella, like in terms of golfing moments. Of course, you got all the right. Do you say you were there? Were you there? No, no, no, no, I wasn't there. Just remember watching it on the TV. But that is a single golfing moment. It's unbelievable, John. I was at the 2005 Ashes, I was in the final day, winning and claimed it at the Oble, which was a sensational day. I was there too. Yeah, I unfortunately had to do the late shift at work, which probably wasn't my greatest day's work. But Mark Cavendish went in the world cycling championship, led in by a British team lead, a brilliant lead out by friend of the show Bradley Wiggins. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. And yeah, golfing memories, rider cops, and so on, I think. I mean, Medina is amazing. Medina is unbelievable. Kelsit Manor as well, the K club, you know, all these repeated wins, absolutely fantastic. For Belfie in 85, the first one they won in, yeah, yeah, however long it was. Can I correct myself? Lee, what Borrell was in the race? I've just seen, I've given him an massive disservice. So, John makes sure you put that in, so everybody's aware of our crossover. Bruni Surin. Bruni Surin was in that race. Bruni Surin. And then Ray Stewart, who was the only player, you know, in the 88 Olympics with Ben Johnson, Ray Stewart, Jamaican athlete, was the only member of that race who didn't have a drugs charge against them at some point in their career. Wow. And there's, I think there's a documentary about that. I should say that, um, stokes it headingly, I was in the park. Jamie had said, we've got to get out of the house. Sitting in the park, and I was holding my phone, watching stokes aheadingly. And like, I think, does Nathan Lyon miss a run out? And like, my hand is like shaking. And the phone is shaking. And I realize that maybe I shake all the time when I'm watching sport, but I'm not holding the tele. But like, my phone, my hand was like this. And, and the edge baston test, you know, the, the one my harborson gets that wicked. I made it mine and got married the day before. One of the earliest weddings in our, like, friendship groups. We were all, like, our hangovers were unreal. And half of us wanted to, we're in a, in Cormon in our hotel. We're like, we're just, just two wickets. And then we'll go back, we'll drive back to London. And obviously that went on for so long. And we were all so sick and hungover. And just, and just the stress of that. And I think, I think, army bowls of full toss that one of them, maybe I can't remember. Bradley, like, middles. And go straight to extra cover. Yeah, it goes straight to extra cover. And you think, if that goes over, we've lost. And then we get the wicket. We shouldn't be a wicket, right? Because he's gloves off of that. Castrovich. I'm in a WhatsApp group with a couple of English guys and several Australians. And the WhatsApp group is called Lion as fumbled. Is it? Oh, amazing moment. That's a great question. Oh, and the Sirl brothers in the Olympics, the Avon Yali's are failing. The Avon Yali's are tiring. Come on, great Britain. Come on, great Britain. Can I give you a shout out? It was where the final frame between Dennis Taylor and Stephen. Oh, yeah. That was so nice. Yeah, even the final black, like, like, that is just, oh, unbelievable moment. All right, that'll do for part two, back in a second. Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly, which it says since it's pre-season. And there's not much to talk about. Could you all discuss how you got started in the industry? I published, I published twice on football three, six, five recently. I'm trying to sneak into the football journalism game. It'd be cool to hear what inspired you guys and what path you took. Oh, well, we could be here for hours talking to ourselves doing this. But I said, give us a potted, give us a potted two minutes. Oh, it's mine takes ages. Mine takes a, because I did running at the, managed to get into running in the BBC and as about 15, which is younger than I should have been. I shouldn't have been there. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. Which is younger than I should have been. I shouldn't have been there, really. And that gave me a taste of what TV was like. But I wanted to be a commentator from the edge of 10. So I was doing a lot of work beforehand. And then when I finished uni, I did a master's in sports journalism, just to really, just because I just wanted to stay in it. And then things built from there. I had a work placement and a couple of places. I did apply to the Guardian and they turned me down. Two woke. Were you two woke, Seb? I think I was before woke. I don't think woke existed then. Right, OK. Shit writing, probably. And then I ended up working in TV as a junior producer. And then ended up as a junior producer at ITV. I'm trying to sub this all down quickly. Were you doing sport or were you doing like loose women? Sport. Right, OK. No, when I was a runner, I did all sorts. I did a what not to wear, watch dog, robot wars when it first started. Amazing. Yeah, amazing. And that's great because when you do start having that experience is when you're around basically working people. It's just the most important thing. Because it takes away that idea of the world is about me, which you have as a young person. You think, they're waiting for me to start working. Everyone's going to be so happy. And then you just see people who just want to almost just finish it in five minutes. Just want to go home or this sort of stuff. The real world, the real life. And there's no substitute for it. John, I trained as a local news journalist. But and I've always had great respect for local news journalists because it's a quite a hard job, very hard. So find a patch to get the stories going. And then thanks to doing work experience. I did work experience at the press association. Then at the BBC landed a job at ESPN as a result of that as a junior member of the team. And it started from there, really. And I was there for a very long time. And then thanks to, I should say, Barry and Barney, straight after leaving ESPN, I was on foot more weekly. And started working on the desk. Thanks to Philip, my gaffer on the desk. So that's it, really. I've worked at two places for a long time in particular and free lunch of the places. That's it, that wasn't? I failed at being an academic. I did a three month journalism course and then stumbled into a job on one football.com, which was a sort of global football website. It was sort of ahead of its time. It still exists in a very, very, very different form now. And then thankfully went bankrupt exactly the right point where I had a bit of experience in some contacts. And I was able to, from there to free lunch, got a job at the FT on staff. And that lasted three years. And I've never had a staff job since. What part of academia did you want to go into? Well, in that respect, I don't think I did want to go into it. But it was just sort of the path I was on. So I was accepted to do a doctorate at York looking at constructions of imperial masculinity in the works of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. Right. And thankfully, I didn't get funded for that. So I could start slacking off Christiana Manaldo. That'd be a good one now. That'd be a really, a good one now. I mean, I know your story, you know, my story, Barry. I mean, I presume everybody listening does. I don't know, but you know, you can do it. You can do it a minute. I entered a journalism competition run by a magazine in Ireland called Hot Press, kind of like the NME, but with more broader range of entertainment, not just music and politics and literature and stuff. And I won it. And part of the prize was a commission to write four articles for them. I wrote the four articles and they offered me a job. And that's how I got into journalism. You'll all remember me reading the news on BBC Radio Cambridgeer in, you know, they're going to report on dog shit. I mean, I literally reported once for BBC London on dog shit as someone was picking up a dog shit with their bare hands. And he's saying, I'm from the BBC, what are you going to do? You know, no, he'd left it. And I went, what are you going to do with that? And then he picked it up with his bare hands. That's real local radio. It's absolute peak. So you ever hear that? How do you hear that sound? You've got to paint pictures with words, Seb. Absolutely. Radio Cambridgeer for three years did the longest of a radio show in a shopping centre for them six days. Took me longer to get it than I held it because a guy in Slovenia started on the Wednesday. Went to BBC London, worked a bit with Danny Baker, who was brilliant, was sort of like, eventually got the overnight show for a bit, which was bad. And then got the breakfast show with Sack for Not Being Famous. But I've replaced by my nemesis, Paul Ross. Went to talk sport to do a current affairs show, then got soccer in, got lucky. Did that for seven years, et cetera, et cetera. Here we all are. Matthew says, Matt, I am Melbourne. I'm in an oiled England fan. I wonder if you've seen any good films lately. I'm hoping for a good palette cleanse on Monday when I go see the Odyssey. OK, what's a good film you've seen recently? Man of Culture, Jonathan Wilson. I think the last film I saw just before I came out to the US or to Mexico was The English Patient, which I have to say, I enjoyed enormously. I know it has a reputation as being slow, but I did not find it slow. I thought it was excellent. Is that the one that Frank LeBuffson? Or is that? No, no, no, no, that's the one. Which one's he? It's a great cast. No, that's the FIFA film from 1998. No, no, no, not the FIFA film. No, no, he isn't. He's in Lucy. He's in Lucy. Is it Lucy? He's in a film with, is it the Stephen Hawking film? Oh, it is, yeah, no, you're right. And he's got the cheering film, isn't it? The Theory of Everything. I can't remember. There's a point where someone's in a hospital bed and Frank LeBuff is the doctor and half the cinema going, who's Frank LeBuff and the other half are like, just watching a general French actor. The Theory of Everything confirmed. Barry, a film recommendation. Oh, I don't watch films very often. I just watch TV shows, box sets. But I have to recommend that. I'm really struggling to think of the last time. Don't worry, I'll get it. John. John, I'll recommend what they said. I'm sorry you're going to say John. Sorry, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I said. I watch a lot of films by tend to go back rather than see the new stuff. I mean, I do see stuff at the cinema. I would say, besides Jurassic Park, I'd recommend that to Jonathan Wilson. Besides that, I do sunset boulevard because I saw it for the first time. Yeah. And it's from, yeah, early fifties. Absolutely fantastic. That and 12 angry men. And I say this because a lot of people might have heard of these films. We wouldn't have seen them. But it is worth it from modern audience even now. They have not dated at all these films and they're very relevant. So, but you know who's favorite film is sunset boulevard? Tell me. Is it Elsa Fernandez? Donald Trump's favorite film in sunset boulevard. So that makes sense, actually. Yes. I suppose he shows it all the time at Mar-a-Lago. Anyway, on the plane over, I watch Casablanca. It does again much better than that. I also watched Full Metal Jacket. As another recommendation, this is one of my very favorite films. Seven is Crime Drama, The Friends of Eddie Coil, starring Robert Mitchum, absolutely sensational, set in Boston, a fantastic film. You've got to watch all these films and then you've completed films. Jurassic Park, Cool Runnings, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Enemy of the State, done. I've heard this from the same year. Three of those are from the same year, I think. I'm stuck in the 90s. Yeah, you know, there are some good actual ones that make you think like the lives of others and life is beautiful, but really. If Enemy of the States on, I'm just watching. Come on, Will Smith, come on Gene Hackman. You can do it. Chris says, why does the pot have a producer and an executive producer? Does the exec stand behind the regular producer, shouting at him and hitting them with a big stick until they get it right? Well, there's people have to listen to this. This is a very good question. I also want to know the answer to this one. They have to, I would say that, you know, for the tape, because we're recording this during the World Cup, that the team here, Doggrove, Roy Simon, Matt Bentley, Viny, plus all the people back at base have done. The amount of work they do is absolutely extraordinary to make us just proud about and look vaguely presentable and sound vaguely presentable. So, yes, you need one to do all the nuts and bolts and one to listen back to check that they've pulled and haven't missed out a nut and bolt. And especially when Philippe's on another one to check that we aren't going to get sued by everybody in the whole world. So they are worth their weight in gold. But thank you for the question. And that'll do for today. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thanks, Baz. Thank you. Cheers, Wilson. Cheers, thank you. And thank you, Seb. Thank you, Max. Football Weekly is produced by Roy Simon and Matt Bentley Viny. Our executive producer is Joe Grove and we'll be back. Next week, I guess, when the season begins. This is the Guardian.