Tag Archives: BBC5Live

December 7, 2022 · 10:13 pm

Monday, Monday….

Monday morning, 5th December 2022

After the Senegal result, all that was going through my head were these words…

“Monday, Monday (bah-da bah-da-da-da)
So good to me (bah-da bah-da-da-da)
Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be….”

Even if we were on cloud 9, we had a very busy day ahead. Anyone who thinks following England around the world is an holiday, please think again. We needed to get tickets sorted for the France game and change all of our logistics. Plus we had been asked to do some media interviews too.

Kirsty is the one who actually enjoys working with the media and given her background in games PR , that’s not really surprising. She’s much better at doing this stuff than I am and I am a naturally shy person. But we are a team and so I have to do my bit, even if I find it pretty hard to do.

Accordingly, here’s a piece direct from Kirsty who’s joining in with the blog today.

The previous night on the way to the England Game ‘Billy The Bee Grant‘ from the ‘Beesotted Brentford’ podcast messaged me to ask whether I would mind joining him on the Radio 4 Today program live the next morning. They also wanted a woman’s perspective on the England result. Knowing that we were already booked in to do Radio 5 Live with Rick Edwards and Rachel Burden. I knew it would be a tight squeeze if anything ran over but I would give it a go. Billy duly passed my number on to Victoria the Radio 4 producer and she gave me a call for a briefing as we were leaving the stadium. It was quite difficult to hear her, but the general gist was that they had spoken to Radio 5 Live and I could borrow their microphone and WiFi, log into Zoom and the interview could be done directly from Souq Waqif to give us time to get to Radio 5 Live. All sorted.

That all sounds so simple doesn’t it! Well the best laid plans and all that jazz… when we get there all of BBC Radio5 Live’s microphones are in use, no problem though, I’ll use my headphones (which fortunately I have with me) and I’ll speak into my phone. I log into the Zoom link which is working fine and I can hear live Radio 4 in the background. I say hi to the director and wait for mine and Billy’s slot… then disaster strikes! About 30 seconds before we’re due to go live, my WiFi goes down and I can’t hear them and they can’t hear me and I then get cut off from the Zoom!


Just before the interview Andy had gone to sit down next to me and I asked him to ‘go for a wander’ as he would put me off… and now with a technical disaster I was desperately scanning the crowds of the Souq looking for him as I needed his technical help!!! Just then my phone rang and it was the director of the Today program, and cool as a cucumber, he patched me straight onto the live show… disaster averted but my heart wasn’t half thumping!

Kirsty’s live slot on BBC Radio 4 Today was at 7.40am U.K. time which is 10.40am out here. You can listen to that here about 1 hour 43 mins in https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fvvv

When I finished the interview, I put my phone down and let out a sigh of relief… then the man at the next table turned to me and said “sorry, I could help but overhear, but were you just doing an interview and who was that for?” I told him the Today program and he then said “that’s great, I’m with BBC Breakfast would you mind doing a piece for us please?”

At which point, ridiculously, I said “Sorry but we’re about to go live on BBC Radio 5 Live…and this might be a case of over exposure!” He didn’t seem to mind that we’d managed to shoehorn ourselves into every blinking BBC broadcast going out that morning and he booked us for 11.30am local time following our slot on Radio 5 Live at 11.15am… that seemed doable so we agreed.

Bobbing between interviews with the BBC

We then had great fun with Rick and Rachel, I managed to tell Rachel that I love her and we had a laugh about having to teach the ‘entry level’ chant to the ‘England’ fans around us and that one particular fan had both Senegal and England flags so he couldn’t lose! The interview went on longer than expected as we were having such a laugh and I’d completely forgotten all about BBC Breakfast TV until I could see Nick the Director waving frantically at us as 11.30am was fast approaching and there they were waiting with the camera and presenter checking their watches nervously as we were due to go live on Breakfast TV in about a minute and a half!!!

With the BBC Radio 5 Live team at the Al Bandar Cafe

You can hear our piece on BBC Five Live here – about 2 hrs 22 minutes into the show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001ftp7?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

We moved pretty sharpish, straight in front of the camera for the interview with the tallest presenter ever, we didn’t even have time to get nervous, there was a lot of talk about honeymoons and camper vans and it was over in a flash.

The BBC Breakfast piece went out live around 8.35am U.K. time and you can see that here.

One of us is never comfortable in front of a camera

Andy had promised fellow football fan, owner of Philosophy Football and author, Mark Perryman that I would get some pictures of me and Kirsty in Philosophy Football T shirts in the best places. He just happened to have their latest World Cup 2022 edition, but he had never realised we would be on BBC TV!

We had bumped into the lovely Peter Lane the previous week walking along the Corniche which runs outside our hotel all along the coast. Peter is a presenter for Channel 5 and asked us if we would do a piece for Dan Walker’s tea time show. True to his word, he called us up and hired a boat to do an interview out on the water.

Not what we expected to be doing on a Monday morning!

It was far more relaxed than going out live and we had a great chat with Peter and Adam, the camera man and we had the bonus of a trip around the harbour on a traditional boat. Peter actually apologised that we didn’t have catering!
Given that were ‘Media Luvvies’ for the day I think I now need a rider.

Being on a boat on the bay in Doha was nice
Peter and Adam a two man force of nature TV production team
Getting the boat moored was a lot of fun too

All four interviews were. done and dusted and we’re free for the day to go and get some lunch and start the nervous hunt for match tickets. And of course, we had to deal with the copious amounts of mickey-taking from back home once we were spotted on the telly. I think we can now call it ‘over exposure’ to the point of saturation, but fear not everyone our 15 minutes will be over by tomorrow and normal service will resume.

It’s Andy here again.

We decided to let Our Joyce know we would be on the telly later that evening. For those who don’t know who ‘Our Joyce’ is, she’s Kirsty’s amazing 92 year old Mum. Our Joyce has been living with us since a week before the original March 2020 lockdown. Our brilliant friend Sarah is looking after Our Joyce whilst we are away and she’s really become part of the family now. Those two do get on like a house on fire.

Last year, Sarah bought Our Joyce an amazing Advent Calendar. It was huge and had the most brilliant presents inside, all of which were useful and mostly edible. Joyce absolutely loved it, so much so, Sarah kindly bought Joyce another one this year. Every day since we’ve been out here, Sarah has filmed Joyce opening the requisite day and sharing the present with us. The videos are always so sweet and, typical of Our Joyce, hilarious. Coco, our jointly owned sausage dog, always makes an appearance too. It’s a lovely thing to look forward to out here each day and always makes us laugh and feel connected.

Kirst and I laughed about whether we would have our very own ‘Gavin & Stacey’ moment on Channel 5. That episode when Gavin’s dad, Mick, played by the brilliant Larry Lamb, (who coincidentally I met on the World Cup in Japan 02) does an interview for the BBC following the discovery of a dead body outside his work in Billericay. Everyone comes around the Shipman’s to watch the BBC 6 O’Clock News and the Welsh side of the family are all sat down with their tea to see Mick’s big moment. As is always the case, what was recorded by the TV cameras was not what was actually broadcast, and Mick’s piece was literally ‘it’s not what you expect to find when you come to work’.

You can see our piece here and make your own minds up. Big thanks to our friends the amazing Martin & Cindy Wright who compiled these clips. Earlier that day Martin was working when Cindy yelled out ‘it’s Andy & Kirsty on TV’! Needless to say Martin worked his magic as always. Thank you!

At 1.30pm we finally finished up our ‘work’ for the morning. We needed food. If only every Monday morning was like this we would all be happy, wouldn’t we?

Ahead of us was the Japan vs Croatia game, which we were really looking forward to. We just needed to Step On as time was slipping away. Oh, and I would get to wear my Japan 02 football shirt. And it still fits. Just about.

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December 3, 2022 · 8:31 am

It’s just like supporting Brazil

Christmas Eve came early to this little seven year old kid who never really grew up. The World Cup has always been like Christmas to me. Game after game of football and the chance to see players I’ve never heard of, let alone seen play. But more on that later.

After a lot of logistical challenges, our World Cup has finally taken off so to speak, from Heathrow Terminal 5 via British Airways to Doha. The excitement for me has been building for months, but there has been a smidgen of sadness and regret. This time, given the ridiculously small location that Qatar is, I wanted to go to at least one game a day for as long as possible. I got 12 tickets for 12 consecutive games over 12 days, including England plus what turned out to be legendary games between Japan vs Germany, Argentina vs Saudi Arabia and Japan vs Spain! But I was always taught, ‘never look back, always look forward’, so we have plenty of big games in store for us, of that I am confident.

Whilst I was packing my bag, at the last minute of course, I went through my T shirts visualising which ones to wear at what games. I don’t normally wear football shirts, let alone to games, but I do have a particular favourite, which I bought in Japan at the 2002 World Cup. The number 7 shirt of Hidetoshi Nakata, the captain of Japan and my favourite player at that World Cup. I thought to myself, no, I won’t take that this time, Japan and their wonderful supporters will be headed home by the time we get to Qatar. I duly zipped my bag up and went out the door. I got in the cab and then had an immediate regret. ‘What if Japan did pull off a miracle and qualified for the last 16?’. I jumped out of the cab and went back to my chest of drawers and grabbed my Japan shirt. We were on our way.

Even our cab driver Lenny was excited and her business partner, the Manchester United fanatic Sarah, was even more excited, such is the power of football. We promised to bring back a program for her, and we won’t let her down.

Heathrow was full of fans setting off to Doha. We met Brazilians, Portuguese, English, Spanish and Americans not only sharing the excitement and anticipation, but sharing screens as we watched Costa Rica vs Germany and Japan vs Spain. We were huddled round those phones and iPads all the way onto the aircraft, despite the obvious angst of the airline staff. Another night of legendary football and one we will never forget.

Discussion on the plane turned to the state of the ‘secondary ticketing market’ which was, despite all efforts to make ticketing digital, present and correct Sir, just like it always was and always will be. Some things just never change.

Arriving in Doha after a great flight and some sleep, we sorted out our mobiles and headed into the city. The cab driver was lovely and when he found out we were English, he went to a different level of conversation around football, culture and how much he loved England and Britain for that matter. He had never visited, but felt he knew all about us through TV and films he had seen. That soft power thing again… something our politicians in the UK would do well to remember.

On arrival at our hotel we were greeted by the staff all of whom were exceptionally lovely and warm. That’s the thing in this part of the world, all the workers are like that. And they are always immigrant workers, always professional, always warm and welcoming. Immigrant labour is a big thing in Qatar, immigrants literally do all the manual work. Pay and conditions in Qatar and other states in this region are controversial for sure, not least in the construction sector where health and safety standards are well below standards in the UK if they exist at all. But more on that controversial subject as this odyssey unfolds.

We had to dump our bags, and head into the Souk Waqif to the Al Bandar Cafe to meet the BBC 5 Live Radio interview with the lovely Rick Edwards. That went well purely because the BBC Five Live team are so professional and so much into the football. I was even complimented on the fact that my 20 year old Japan shirt still fitted me, live on air. If you want to, you can hear Kirsty and I from 1.56mins on until 2.00 and then again at 2.21 mins onwards for a few mins here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fl14?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Headed back to the hotel to check in, we met a load of Brazilian fans. In all my travels to World Cups one thing is a given. Not all Brazilian fans come from Brazil. Brazil is the number one team in world football, it’s Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Ajax and West Ham all rolled into one. And everyone wants to be Brazil. Remember that.

We decided to find a bar and then head to the fan zone to watch the games which kicked off at 6pm and 10pm local time. That bar ended up being on the roof of our hotel. Beer is not cheap, and we paid about £12.50 a pint, which is extortionate, but this is a Muslim country and alcohol is not a norm. That’s why it is so expensive, that and straight ahead capitalism of course.

The bar was pretty empty, in fact we were the only people in it apart from the staff, but the games weren’t on for a few hours, so that’s to be expected. About 20 mins later, four men came in and ordered some drinks. They say that English, Spanish and Mandarin are the world’s languages, they’re not. Football is. The lads were all Brazilian fans, but as I said earlier, not all Brazilian fans are from Brazil, but these boys ‘sounded’ Brazilian. So I asked ‘where are you from?’ and suggested ‘Rio? Sao Paolo?’. One of the men said ‘no, guess where we are from? We are from Israel’. Immediately Kirsty and I both said ‘we’ve just come back from Israel visiting our friends!’ Within a couple of minutes of exchanging notes so to speak, the older gentleman said ‘what is your friends name?’ I then told him he had a nickname ‘the King of Jerusalem’ only to be told that this man and our friend were boyhood friends from the same part of the world. Literally what are the chances of that???

The rest of the night was a blur of laughter, joy, watching football, and a lot of love. The sheer wonders of life, the random meetings with strangers and those connections which are deeper than you first realise are always there, you just have to take a chance or two to discover them.

At the end of the day, it’s just like supporting Brazil. And even they got beaten in their last group game, by a random Cameroon goal. Anyone who thinks this World Cup is in anyway predictable may want to consider that nothing is written.

Tonight we are off to watch Argentina play Australia and even I may wear my 2010 Brazilian shirt, given it is yellow and green… can you work out who I will be supporting yet?

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