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As a disabled person it seemed to me that a career in sport – especially sport production – was not an option. Only now, in hindsight, do I realise that it was a classic scenario of 'if you can’t see it, you can’t be it'.

From 16 November to 16 December it's Disability History Month, an annual event in the UK which provides an opportunity to reflect on the issues disabled people face and start conversations on how to become more inclusive. Reflecting on my experiences growing up, sport has always been a huge part of my life, especially football. Like many girls growing up, all I wanted to do was play football, hoping to one day to make it as a professional player.

Throughout my teenage years and early twenties, my life was spent competing in para-athletics, working my way up to international level. As I started university, a career as an athlete was something I could no longer see myself following, but I wanted to find a job that would still allow me to be at the heart of sport events.

Originally, I considered becoming a sports photographer after studying this for my degree. But this all changed during my final year at university, when I came across the Channel 4 Para Production Scheme, which was looking for disabled people with no TV experience to work in the industry. After a long interview process, I was successful in my application and was offered a place on the scheme as part of the 2019 cohort. Along with the offer came a job at IMG as a researcher.

The scheme provided monthly training sessions at Channel 4 and first-hand work experience with production companies. Although Covid-19 hit during this time, I was moving around a variety of productions including Trans World Sport, Premier League Productions and EuroLeague Basketball.

In May 2021, I was hired by Whisper to work on the Tokyo Paralympics. My family reminded me that after watching Hannah Cockroft win the iconic 100m gold medal at the Olympic Stadium in 2012, on our way home I promised I would be involved at Tokyo. At the time I thought I would be competing, but life works in funny ways – and I kept my promise, just not how any of us imagined.

Looking back now, the 2012 Paralympic Games drastically changed attitudes and perceptions towards disability and disability sport. In production, it opened doors to encourage production companies to have more disabled talent, both on and off screen.

Whisper produced more than 300 hours of Tokyo coverage on Channel 4 and More4, viewed by more than 20 million people. We also saw a production team that comprised 18 per cent disabled talent, ranging from producers and floor managers to editors and researchers. We built on this huge feat for the Beijing Winter Paralympics this year, with 86 hours of round-the-clock coverage, making history in a TV first with a 100 per cent disabled presenting team and 18 per cent off-screen disabled talent.

 

Dream come true

After Beijing I immediately began working on UEFA Women's EURO 2022 at Whisper for the BBC. With football being the reason I fell in love with sport, to work on my first tournament was a dream come true. But it also felt like the golden opportunity for Whisper to produce the coverage women’s football deserved. We knew there would be viewers watching the women’s game for the first time, so it was vital for us to produce creative content that would grip the viewers and encourage them to keep coming back for more.

For me there was also a chance to step up professionally and take on more responsibilities. This was the first production I worked on from the very beginning without any Covid restrictions. I got stuck into creating ideas and seeing them through to the finish. There were many times where imposter syndrome kicked in, but this tournament felt like the right time to use everything I'd learned from previous productions.

In the months leading up to the WEUROs, my responsibilities included researching the teams and players to think of creative VTs we could produce, assisting with the preparation of shoots (finding venues, sourcing props and equipment, preparing content such as interview questions) and sourcing permission to use external footage as part of our coverage.

We filmed the opening titles with Joy Crookes and six international players, alongside media days with England at St George's Park and Northern Ireland in Belfast to film our hero shots and create features such as 'Meet The Team'. During the WEUROs, I produced match openers, features and fan zones on match days to showcase the buzz the tournament was creating around the country.

One of my highlights of the tournament was filming the England fans at Boxpark in Croydon for the England vs Sweden semi-final. When Alessia Russo scored that incredible back-heeled goal, I watched the fans' reaction and saw they were in awe of the quality of football that the women’s game can produce. People from all ages and backgrounds were celebrating. To know that we were playing a small part in producing the coverage, it felt extra special.

 

Support

Working on large-scale productions is not easy for anybody. At the WEUROs we all worked round the clock to ensure we could create the best coverage possible, and it was worth every second. When you add having a disability into the mix, it can bring some challenges. But having a great team who understand my disability and how it affects me, I get the support I need before an issue occurs.

I have cerebral palsy and wear hearing aids. I can also be prone to falling over or tripping on uneven surfaces. And I can fatigue quickly, causing my concentration levels to dip. While these symptoms can be controlled to a certain extent, when you are working on a production that is fast-paced and involves long shifts over numerous days, these symptoms become more common. To ease this, I was given a hotel room for the duration of the tournament. This made sure I would not have to drive home after long days and could maximise my rest time during shifts.

During the quieter days, I was offered reduced shift hours and days off to rest if I felt fatigued. Transport was always provided when I was filming on site. All these measures helped to ensure that I paced myself and prevented myself from fatiguing too early in the tournament both physically and mentally.

To assist with my hearing impairment, before or during an edit, our creative lead producer always found the time to discuss with me what music tracks we would use for the edit. This might seem a small act of support but knowing I would be provided with this help took away a lot of stress.

 

Driving change

There’s been a huge rise in women’s and disability sport in the past decade. Growth in media coverage, an increase in sponsorship, influential role models, and more diverse representation both in front of and behind the camera.  

This year alone we have seen a dramatic increase in the profiles of women’s and disability sport. The WEUROs, the Paralympics, Women’s Rugby World Cup, Commonwealth Games, Rugby League World Cup and women’s cricket, to name a few: all these sports have rightly received lots of positive publicity and created a more equal playing field which is only going to grow.

While we continue to create a level playing field on the pitch, it is just as important to do the same off it. From a disability perspective, this can be daunting, as everyone has different needs and support requirements.

As a result, I helped to set up The Ability Group in Sport (TAGS) – the first UK network for disabled people working or wanting to work in sports media roles. 

Without Channel 4 and IMG having faith in me to jump straight to a researcher role, I believe it would have been very difficult to get my foot in the door. Received wisdom holds that to get into the industry you start in the physically demanding job of a runner. But in all honesty, there are not many people with a physical disability who could fulfil this role, due to the barriers that people with a physical disability face.

This is where TAGS steps in.

We are a member organisation, and our members have a range of disabilities that are both visible and non-visible. They have experience spanning a variety of operational roles, including journalists, producers and editors at senior level, along with students aspiring to begin their careers. We created TAGS to support disabled people working in sports media and production who want to work in tandem with organisations to ensure that the next generation of disabled colleagues have the best and most supportive route to fulfilling their own career choices.

By combining our lived experience of disability, we hope to educate current leaders on how to make their organisations more inclusive and understanding of situations that can arise for disabled people.

As we say in TAGS, we believe all disabled people working or wanting to work in sport deserve a fair PIECE of the action. Together, our aims are as follows.

• Promote and support disabled people already working in sports media production and establish a network for them to progress
• Improve accessibility in media areas at sports venues and working spaces such as press boxes, gantries, outside broadcasts, studios and offices
• Educate our peers and others on the importance of reasonable adjustments and provide ideas on how to provide these adjustments
• Collaborate and create more opportunities for disabled people in the sports production industry in any field of their choice
• Encourage conversation and remove fear about disability, needs and adjustments

While we realise that some of these objectives require big changes in the industry which can be costly, many of the barriers disabled people face can be solved by an honest conversation. According to the World Health Organisation, almost everyone is likely to experience some form of disability – temporary or permanent – at some point in life. By removing the fear and encouraging conversations, many of these aims can be achieved with minimal expense.

It is vital that these conversations continue in Disability History Month and beyond. Just as we have seen with women’s sport, exposure and communication is essential to growth. By having more inclusion in sport, creating more awareness and coverage, we can help to secure that level playing field, both on and off the pitch.

Follow The Ability Group in Sport on LinkedIn

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