I am a Mathematics student in my final year at Newcastle University. However, my ambition strangely enough is to become a sports writer. At the time of starting this blog I have essentially no experience of writing, whether that be about sports or anything else. Therefore from a personal point of view I will be using this blog to explore different writing techniques, different topics of interests and investigating different analytic tools. I also intend to gain work experience and apply to enrol on a journalism degree in the future, so we will see where this blog leads to!
I played tennis, cricket and football to a reasonably good regional and national level as school boy, but I grew up in a football culture and a footballing family, so football is where I intend to focus my efforts on and specialise so therefore will be the main subject of this blog. However, I will try to drop bits and pieces from various other sports and pieces that take my interest!
From the outset, I am expecting myself to try to take techniques from American reporting. I am an avid listener to podcasts following the NFL and NBA. I want to compare and contrast their culture, particularly in terms of league parity and youth development. I also intend to learn from their in depth analysis techniques and explore the use and relevance of statistics. In America they seem to take a lot more quotes and opinions from league insiders so the potential to carry that over to British football interests me!
Despite this, my opinion of American sports journalism is not all positive, I am a big critic of the hot take culture over there, but I intend to understand that side of it a little better. Clicks sell!
I am initially expecting my main topics of interest written about to be player analysis, youth development, football culture and mental health in sports! I think my writing will be an “x’s and o’s” style of investigations.
I originally ran a Blogspot but have since moved to WordPress and hope to take it further. As I begin to personalise the blog, I may introduce a smaller, more casual music section. My main genres of interest are House, Disco, Acid and Techno. I also intend to upload travelling photos!
If all goes well the goal is to move to a professional blog site and set up a mail bag theme! (The long term goal would be to set up my own website and run a podcast).
So, hopefully this wasn’t too long a read and explains what this is all about. Welcome to Six of One!