John Seager's Review of the year 2015

Evening all,

At the end of the 2014, I was in a good stead to make 2015 a special year for me. Things were finally going well for me and I was getting more reporting work. But 2015 completely blew the roof off the previous few years and this has been the best year for my work and my life so far. And it all started to change 72 hours into the New Year...

John Seager...In a Relationship

Someone once said to me: 'the smallest of changes will make the big things happen in your life'. This was true when I decided to ask Esther (a girl who I met from Match.com back in November of last year) to be my girlfriend. I did think she would say no as she was travelling back from New Zealand and the jet lag might catch up with her. Luckily for me it didn't, we had a nice drink together and I asked her at the end of the night which she said yes.  It felt amazing closing down my dating profile and for the first time in my life, someone actually wanted to go out with me for being me.

The stuff we have done as a couple over the past year has been special and fantastic. We spent a lot of great time together and she has been really supportive to my work as a reporter and also my plans for the future. We have also spent two holidays together one in Berlin where I learned the lesson never to take her to a football game again, but we both had a fantastic time there and also in Bruges for her birthday. It was really nice to go on holiday with her, but nothing can compare to the holiday which I went on back in February.

Das Deutschland...Das Bundesliga

This was a holiday which was the culmination of months of planning; saving and buying everything I need for a one week football trip on my own to Germany.  Considering it was over ten years since I last went on a foreign holiday, I was very excited but nervous at the same time as I was travelling on my own. I would call it a once in a lifetime trip, but it started with an uncomfortable night sleep at Gatwick whilst watching the Super-bowl. A few hours later I was in Dusseldorf in a small hotel trying to acclimatise to my new surroundings. Over the rest of the week I caught 5 games in Germany for less than £100. Four of them were top flight games; including in Dortmund where I stood opposite a big yellow wall, in Gelsenkirchen where I made a lot of friends from both the UK and in Germany despite getting lost at the end of the game and in Köln (Cologne) where I witnessed one of the best football themes at a club, despite missing Gillingham winning 2-0 at home to Sheffield United. Finding out that result caused some 'fun' on the way back to Dusseldorf. I also caught a third division game again in Köln the following day which I found myself acting like a fool on the 'Sportschau' sports show on ARD 'Das Erste' channel.

One positive thing to come from the trip was that my travel exploits was featured in the Gillingham FC programme for the game verses Doncaster later in February. It did feel nice to write again for the main programme and share my story of a fantastic trip. The only major downside were that I didn't get to see many goals - six in total and three came in the final game which I wasn't expecting. I also wasn't expecting a hotly atmosphere when I went into see Borussia Dortmund's game with FC Augsburg, this happened because I was wearing blue shoes and I took a photo with my blue Gillingham scarf inside the ground, with some of the Dortmund fans thinking I'm a Schalke 04 fan (I'm not making that mistake again.) One other thing, I have caught the 'football travel bug' and I will be making more trips back to Germany and possibly to France next year. And who knows, Russia in 2018 anyone?

So with less than two months completed of the year things were going very well...could they get better?

(KLAXON) Job Alert...The RFL is calling...

It does feel nice to get a call out of the blue and get offered an opportunity of a lifetime, and that call came for me happened whilst watching FC Bayern Munich v FC Köln on a Friday night in February. Out of the blue I get a phone call from Martin Coyd, the Chairman of the Wheelchair Rugby League - a sport which I reported on over the past two years - and he offers me the newly created position of Media Manager of the sport at national and international level. I couldn't believe he would offer it to me and I gladly accepted the job offer without knowing how difficult the job would be. I spent the first few months of the job travelling up and down the country reporting on the season (with a little help from the Medway Dragons WRL team). I think I did OK despite using the best facilities that I had to me (yes even the pen and paper technology was used). It was a steep learning curve but I was kept on track by the keen eyes of John and Sean from the RFL. It was a tough first season but I made a lot of progress showcasing the sport. I arranged coverage of the first ever WRL Challenge Cup Final with ITV News Granada Reports and ITV News Calendar. Despite the game not going ahead, the seeds were in place for showcasing the sport in the future, little did I know what was going to happen next. 

2015 WRL European Championships

I knew that the pressure was on me to get some great coverage of the tournament which being held in Gillingham. And I had a plan to showcase myself not only as a good media manage/reporter but also showcase the sport like never before. I offered coverage to all the major local media outlets both in Kent but also in the heartland of Rugby League. Luckily the seeds which I offered coverage of the failed Challenge Cup Final helped me here and I helped arranged ITV News Meridian to film the opening of the tournament whilst finals day was going to be featured on at least one ITV News region. The pressure was on to get the job done, luckily for me I was fully prepared with the right equipment which profiled a fantastic tournament. England WRL won the tournament with a golden point try in extra time over the world champions France, once game was finished, I got the coverage I wanted to be showed sent to ITV News and my job was done.

I felt that I did a good job. I had two packages, which I got some good reviews on and filmed coverage of the final which was sent to three ITV News Regions, thirty seconds of my coverage was used on ITV News Calendar.  It may have taken me nearly ten years to achieve this but I have finally filmed something for ITV News and I don't want to stop there. We have a new season to showcase and we have a World Championships coming up in 2017 in Australia and I want to film England WRL winning it for ITV News. The coverage and the stories from this tournament alone will also help me get future work as a reporter. Overall, I had a great first year in charge and I want to take it further in to my second season.

Away from my RFL work, I continued my work with the Kent Kings Speedway, Gillingham Ladies FC and also with GB Handball which has given me the thirst to play a bit of handball in the future, trust me I will be a better handball player than a football player. 

Well that will do for now, so have a merry and enjoyable 2016 and I hope it will bring everything that you want from it.

Till next time,

I'll Sithee and 'appy New Year to y'all 

John Seager Goes To Germany: the transcript from the Gillingham v Doncaster Rovers programme 7th March 2015

Evening all,

For those who couldn't make the game this Saturday, here is the full transcript from my article from the match day programme.

Enjoy. 

John Seager Goes To Germany...

Giant flags, sold out stadiums, safe standing, friendly fans and loads of bratwurst sausages. No, this was not a typical dream for many modern football fans; this is the result of my fantastic first ever trip to Germany to find all about what their football is really like.

 

By contrast I have never been to a Premier League game and the way that ticket prices are at the minute - and in the future as well even with a new £5 billion TV deal - I do not intend to go a Premier League game either. However I have had a secret obsession for following German football every week on TV and I finally made a cunning plan to go to see five games in one week in February. 

The main thing that sold going to Germany for me was the ticket prices for five games over a week including 4 Bundesliga and one 3.Liga (the equivalent to League One in England) all for the price of 125 Euros which is just over £100. That's almost the same cost of seeing one Arsenal category “A” game in the posh seats at the Emirates. Obviously you have to take other things into account (hotels, flights, food, beer etc) but I decided to see what the fuss is all about and find out if England and the FA in particular can learn something from them. 

The first game was in Mönchengladbach and it was a completely different experience from that at Priestfield. Constant signing from the home fans, standing areas behind the goal and yes they even allow you to drink Beer on the terraces and in the stands - albeit watered down beer, but seeing a man walking around with a beer pack on his back made it convenient for me to get a beer whilst watching the game. After the game there was a bus shuttle services from the ground to the station. It was a long journey as the traffic at the ground was horrendous but it was free and a convenient way to get back to the station. One thing I was totally mystified about the game was a man walking up and down the stands selling Pretzels to everyone. I just couldn't understand why Germans are so big on their Pretzels. Borussia  defeated Frieburg their visitors with a goal by Herrmann on 23 minutes in a tight game in front of 37,091. 

My second game was trip to Dortmund and was one game I was really looking forward to watching. 25,000 people standing behind one goal in a crowd of 80,667. Luckily both sets of fans were in full voice with drums and flags flying everywhere not just on the terrace. The Atmosphere went from electric at the beginning to utterly poisonous as Dortmund lost again at home. The visitors Augsburg scored the only goal on 50 minutes from Bobadilla to leave the Champions League regulars in the relegation zone! Weirdly to get something to eat in the ground you have to buy a food card from inside the ground for €10 (there is a €2 deposit should you wish to hand your card back at full time). Luckily I got my money's worth outside the ground where for €5 I had a roll with onions and three different pieces of sauerkraut and ham. That filled me up and they should have taken that inside the ground as an alternative to Bratwurst. What also was weird was that they sold a massive A4 programme full to the brim of what's happening at Dortmund and they only charge €2 for this. For the same kind of programme at an England game it will set you back £6. Luckily I met up with a Swedish Dortmund fan on the way back to the hotel and he will look into me getting a ticket on the Südtribune - the infamous “Yellow Wall” terrace in the near future. 

Perhaps most significantly I also got to try what "Safe-Standing" is like when I went to Schalke 04 against Borussia Mönchengladbach on the Friday night. I was with three other Gills fans that regularly make the trip to Gelsenkirchen and they are part of the official UK Schalke 04 fan club. I have never met a group of fans who have ever been so proud of the team. You cannot walk 200 meters down the street in Gelsenkirchen without seeing a flag or some poster related to Schalke 04 (admittedly there isn‘t much else). Even when I got to their main fanhaus near the Veltins Arena, they proudly welcomed foreign fans like me with open arms. I remember taking one group photo for some German fans, I told them that I was from England and they invited me to join in with my Gillingham scarf. I enjoyed the game as much as mixing with the locals; the standing inside the ground gave a good view of the pitch and the safe standing added to the atmosphere where I saw Schalke 04 edge out another 1-0 win in front of 61,973. Barnetta scoring the decisive goal after ten minutes. 

My trip ended up in Köln for a weekend of yet more football and the local Kölsch beer - a nice tasting beer served in small glasses and even better, the waitresses fill your glass up without the need of going to the bar and then operate a “trust system“ simply ticking your beermat and you settle up at the end of the night…. The first game I saw was at FC Köln’s superb RhinEnergie Stadion where the atmosphere was fantastic and again very welcoming to foreign fans but I saw a boring 0-0 draw against Paderborn 07 in a crowd of 49,500. The real drama occurred on the way back when I found out that Gillingham had defeated Sheffield United 2-0. I screamed out in delight in English on a packed tram and I admit a few of the German fans thought I was some sort of lunatic. I then explained in very bad German that I was a tourist and Gillingham fan from England and they eventually understood that everything was ok…

The following day saw my second game, a trip to southern Köln to see Fortuna Köln play out a great 3-0 win against table topping Arminia Bielefeld. It was played at a ground with a running track so the fans from both sides quite were far away from the action. It definitely didn’t help the lack of atmosphere despite the best efforts of over two thousand Bielefeld fans that made the journey across to Köln. But I tried to get involved with the Fortuna Ultras and ended up seeing a few goals at long last and then seeing myself on the TV highlights after the game when I got back to Düsseldorf. Glockner put the home side 1-0 up on 28 minutes, Dahmani made it 2-0 on 52 minutes and Rahn sealed a shock 3-0 win on 79 in front of 4,912.

Overall the whole trip was a memorable one despite the chronic lack of goals which is unusual for the Bundesliga. Nevertheless attending five games in one week has given me the taste to see more German games in the future. One criticism though, I do think that the Germans need to adapt their non smoking policy inside the grounds. Every game I went to there was at least three people around me lighting up and spoiling my view of the match. If I had my way, I would persuade the DFB to follow what we do over there and have a strict no smoking policy inside the ground. That aside though I would highly recommend at least trying to see one game over there to see how safe standing and cheaper prices can work. Oh yes, and anyone fancy a Currywürst?