On Thursday we welcomed Old Edwardian Joe Speight (2004) to the KES Speaker Series. Joe is one of the UK’s lead football commentators, covering games for the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, European football, and World Cups. This is high-calibre work.
I was inspired to invite Joe because he’s separate from much of his field in that whilst many reach the heights he has in their 40s/mid-careers, Joe matched them by his early 30s – comparatively very early. What’s more, as an ex-KES pupil, I knew Joe could articulate his content appropriately with a solid understanding of audience. This made the experience overall a much better one.
Joe’s talk was on the sports journalism world, ways to get involved, and his personal experiences. It was a great opportunity not only for sports fans but also for those interested in a career in the field to learn more about it. Especially so considering Joe was in many of our exact shoes as an ex-KES pupil.
The talk was excellent. The key takeaway for me was just how much the industry has changed and diversified, not only in Covid times, but how generally adaptable the industry is, for example, Joe mentioned being able to commentate from his living room! I thought that was really cool. It was followed by a Q&A, with boys from across year groups putting high-quality questions to Joe. This enabled us all to learn a lot aside from just being a really interesting talk on a thoroughly engaging topic.
