Home game #2 for the Revs tonight on a cold, wet, miserable, cold, miserable..did I mention that it was COLD..evening. Soccer celebration area was closed down(dunno why they wouldn't want wet little kids jumping around on wet plastic inflatables?) so the few of us volunteers brave(foolish!) enough to show up early got to spend some time stuffing team inserts into the programs as the cold and wet got to our brains making us giddier and giddier. By the time the gates opened and the hoardes(?) of people poured through the gates we were shouting "free seat warmers!" as we handed out the programs(they're given away free here). It's all int he marketing, ya know...people's faces lit up when they realized they were being handed something that actually had a purpose rather than some stuff for them to toss away. MLS should really pick up on this angle, I think. ;-)) Anyway, a short time later, the volunteer coordinator comes up to me asking if I was "knowledgeable" about the game. err....what exactly do you mean? She wasn';t sure so radioed someone who started babbling things about offsides, cards, goalkicks, etc. She looked at me completely confused and asked if I knew what any of that meant. Umm, yeah, but I claim no expertise. Sold...I was now going to be helping with stats in the press box(they were shorthanded).

Eek! Get up there and find out I'm not in the press box...but the Television booth. Assisting the commentators! And fortunately was not the main stats person, just supposed to be an extra pair of eyes and ears to pick up on/confirm events on the pitch. And also found myself spotting one rather animated commentator who was close to falling off his pedestal a few times and keeping track of pens, notes and promo spots. Great fun, and cetainly a new perspective on the game. Also a chance to spend a couple hours back in my beloved show biz. How I've missed being on production headsets! Next week it will be back to supervising kiddies play time and sitting in the stands with everyone else. But that's ok...at least in the stands I can yell! :-)

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000

Answers

Great stuff Ciara. With your knowledge and enthusiasm for the game there's really no reason why you couldn't break in to that as a career especially as the game is in such early stages there. However, it is not where you want to be geographically.

BTW, another of your countrymen was attempting to kick-start his own media career over here just last night. I heard a brief 5 minutes of the Radio 5 phone in prog here on Saturday night and there was a call from New York (that's the other New York - not the one on Tyneside) from a West Ham fan (we all have our crosses to bear). The American guy was listening to the programme on the internet and had phoned in with his comments. I don't normally hear this programme but I've certainly never heard of anyone from so far afield ringing in.

As for my own media career, it is summed up in St Kenneth Wolstenholme's immortal words - "They think it's all over - it is now"

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000