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Raise Your Game: Why sport?

Jill Douglas: I come from a news background. I was a print journalist and then moved into television news. I was always interested in what was happening on the sports' desk. I come from an area of Scotland called the Scottish Borders, which is a very strong rugby area. I grew up watching a lot of rugby, going along to watch games when I was a little girl.

I was always interested in sport. My family are big sports' fans. We always had all the locals round watching big sporting events. I wasn't particularly sporty myself. I played a lot of hockey and rode, still do ride, but I just had a general interest in it. When I was given the opportunity to do sport stories I used to grab them.

RYG: How did you get into this kind of work?

JD: When I left school I was about to start my degree at Edinburgh doing history and politics. I always wanted to be a journalist. Through the latter part of my schooling, if I had any holidays or work experience, I used to hang out at the local newspaper office doing little bits for them. I wanted to be a print journalist.

I didn't go to university. They offered me a job as a junior reporter and I went off to work for the Southern Reporter. They sent me to college to do my NCTJ, which is a professional exam for journalists, and I started work as a print journalist purely because I was just a pest. They couldn't think of anything other than giving me a job to stop me hanging around.

RYG: From there to being in front of camera with the Ö÷²¥´óÐã!

JD: Its funny... it's a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time, that's what I think. Obviously you need to be noticed by people to be given the opportunities, and I think you do have to work hard. I worked very hard as a young journalist learning the trade and asking questions, understanding what a story is and being able to present that in a way that people would find interesting. Whether you work in news, sport, politics, whatever, it's exactly the same; a story is a story, is a story. I consider myself first and foremost a journalist.

I worked for the newspaper then I worked in television where I wrote the news. The boss asked if I ever thought about presenting the news and being on-screen, going out reporting and doing all sorts of interesting things and I said 'no, but I'll give it a go'.

That went very well and then Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland came to me and asked if I'd like to present 'Rugby Special'. It was quite a big step because they'd never had a women present 'Rugby Special'. I'm from Hawick, Bill Maclaren is from Hawick, and was very helpful and very encouraging. I was hugely enthusiastic which was important.

I worked for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland doing sport and then I moved to Sky TV. They saw me in a newspaper and thought 'there's a girl who likes her sport, maybe she'd like to come and work for us'. I moved to London and while I was working for Sky the Ö÷²¥´óÐã watched me for a bit and said 'oh maybe we should have her back to do some Grandstand rugby'. I was asked if I wanted to move back to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, which I've been doing for the last few years, and love it.

RYG: Can you describe a typical day presenting a big rugby game?

JD: I'll have spent most of the day before the match doing some preparation. That's a little bit like studying for your exams. You need to know the personalities involved, what the stories are surrounding the game and how they've come into this game. You do a lot of preparation. I like to go in knowing more than I need.

On the day of the game you get there quite early, about 10 o'clock for a 3 o'clock kick-off, because you do a little bit of filming early on. You need to meet the crew and they need to have time to get a cup of tea and all those things the crew like to do before they go out filming.

You get into an edit suite and try to write words to match pictures, and edit pieces that are going to appear in that programme. Then you go through the running order with your editor and talk about how the programme is going to develop.

An hour and a half before the programme goes on air, which could be anything up to an hour before the match, you're rehearsing and checking your voice levels and the lighting in the studio. All sorts of interesting things. It's great fun.

You're there right through the match, thinking all the time, making it up as you go along. We don't have anybody write our scripts. You're basically presenting to the people watching at home off the top of your head. You've given it some thought, you've tried to prepare as well as you can, but you're reacting to what you see so you can't really prepare that much. It's purely live broadcasting which is very nerve-wracking but hugely rewarding. The game finishes and eventually, maybe an hour later, you're all finished.

RYG: What are the highs and lows of this job?

JD: There are very few lows but lots and lots of highs. You're in an incredibly privileged position because you're able to go along to major sporting events and be ringside. You can see and hear everything. I've been to an Olympic Games, Paralympics, Commonwealth Games, World Championships. I've seen some incredible feats of sportsmanship, and you're right there as it's happening. You see history in the making and that is definitely the highlight. You get to meet these amazing sportsmen and women, and see them develop as individuals. You get to meet them when they're first coming into their sport. You watch them develop and you build up relationships with them.

The lowlights... Sometimes you're away from home quite a lot, which can be difficult. It's not first class all the way, you don't stay in exotic hotels and have people running after you. I was in China this year and I spent three weeks there with no luggage, in a really not very nice place and without anything except my passport and my wallet. You're a long way from home and you've got no phone and you can't get in touch with anybody.

At the other end of the scale I was there with a whole lot of young British athletes so I was getting to see them take their first steps on the international ladder. I'd like to think maybe in five years time I'll look back and I'll forget all about the lost luggage and I'll forget about the horrible hotel, but I'll remember these wonderful athletes stepping onto the track for the first time.

RYG: How do you deal with the pressure of live TV?

JD: I think it's something that you learn to deal with the more experienced you become. When I first presented live news, which was 12 years ago, I was very inexperienced and probably didn't deal with the pressure as well. I used to breathe very shallow when I was presenting and you could hear it in my voice and see it in my face.

I always think of it as a pilot flying air miles, 'the more you get, the better you become' and therefore over the years you become more experienced and you learn how to deal with it. You know what can go wrong, and you also learn how to react if things go wrong.

If you've done your preparation and you know the team of people that you're working with, then it makes life an awful lot easier. I still get nervous all the time. I think the best thing to do is to take a deep breath, make it simple, know what you're talking about, don't try and be fancy, don't try and be clever and just enjoy the experience.

RYG: How disciplined do you have to be to do this job?

JD: Quite disciplined. I think if you look at anybody presenting live TV, and I'm talking about sport and news particularly where they're trying to impart a lot of facts, they're quite disciplined. It's different in light entertainment when you can be a bit more spontaneous, but I think you need to be quite disciplined.

TV depends very much on the pictures that you see on your television, and all the other things that come up on the screen, whether it be GFX, the studio or the pictures of the game. All sorts of different things make a TV programme and all of those things rely on people making them. As a presenter, while I might suddenly want to start talking about something completely different, I have to stick to what we've agreed in order for all these other people to get their bits into the programme. So you have to be quite disciplined.

You have to listen to your director, listen to your producer, listen to the people that are in the truck or in the studio behind the gallery, directing you and counting you. You need to be disciplined that way.

Leading up to a live event you need to do your homework and go to bed early. Sometimes it's very tempting to go out with everybody else, They're all going to a party or going out for a nice meal and you think 'oh well I'd like to go', but sometimes you think 'no, if I'm going to be sitting in front of a camera under a light in everybody's home tomorrow I don't want big bags under my eyes and not really know what I'm talking about'.

RYG: What's the biggest high you've ever had in sport?

JD: If I had to pick one exact moment when we were live on air and something very, very special happened it was at the Athens Olympics. Chris Hoy won the Gold Medal in the kilometre time trial and that was incredible. I'd been with Chris at the World Championships and got to know him quite well. He's Scottish, from Edinburgh, and he was the last to go in the time trial and you watched all these other cyclists set new World Records and he knew what he had to do to win the Gold medal. It was hugely nerve-wracking. His family were all there and we'd done a huge build-up to Chris' gold attempt and he won the gold medal.

I was just so nervous. I can remember I could hardly watch at the end and then I looked up and I saw him raise his hands. It was all he could do to raise his hands. He'd put everything into it. Every single bit of his being had gone into that and it takes less than a minute. It's a minute long. One minute of television. One minute of sport. It was absolutely incredible and afterwards he was just so relieved.

His family were wonderful. I met his mum and dad that night and we did some filming with them. It was just a really, really special day. I'd say that was possibly one of my most exciting moments when it comes to live broadcasting.

RYG: If you could design yourself the perfect job what would it be?

JD: I think I'm probably doing it. I really enjoy doing what I do. I enjoy seeing live sport performed at the highest level. What's wonderful about sport is that it involves everybody, everybody has an opinion. At the moment everybody's talking about the cricket. Everybody has an opinion whether they are English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, or Australian. Nobody's opinion is worth any more than anybody else's.

As long as I'm working in sport, enjoying it and getting to see some wonderful sporting events, I'm quite happy. I don't want to be really famous. I don't want people to stop me in the street. I want to just enjoy the work, work with lovely people, work on good quality sport and get to experience some more of these amazing moments. If I could have a few more highs like Chris Hoy winning his gold medal in Athens, then I think I'll be very, very lucky.

RYG: As a woman how hard has it been convincing people that you know your sport?

JD: I've never found it difficult. I don't know if other people have found it difficult relating to me, certainly that's not the feedback I've had. I don't think of myself particularly as a woman working in sport. I think of myself as a broadcaster, a journalist, and the right person for the job, regardless of whether I happen to be female or male. I think because I came from a very strong news background and people were aware of me from that side of things, they appreciated me as a journalist. Maybe it was less difficult for me.

You have to prove yourself, but I think that's the same for any man in the job. You have to prove that you are credible. Always respect the people that you're talking to because these are the people who are putting themselves on the line. They're the stars of the show. What we do is facilitate you being able to watch it at home.

RYG: What have you learnt from covering a range of sports?

JD: I've learned that the effort sportsmen and women put in is incredible. Their commitment to their sport is phenomenal. Sometimes as a viewer, as a sports fan, you only see the end result. You don't see what's gone before. A lot of that can be long, long boring hours in the gym, long, long hours on the track or, for the likes of Paula Radcliffe, long hours out on the road in the rain running and running.

They're willing to give up a lot of other things that perhaps we all enjoy doing: eating and drinking and playing or whatever. They give up an awful lot to perform at the highest level. I think whatever it is you decide to do in life, if you want to be the very best at it, you have to be able to make sacrifices. Not everybody can do that and I think it makes our sportsmen and women that little bit special.

RYG: And finally - any advice for young people who would like your job?

JD: I would say go for it because it is a fantastic job. It's a wonderful opportunity to go and get involved with sport at whatever level. What I would say is, if you can, go and work with your local radio station covering local sporting events. Get involved and learn how to recognise a story happening in front of you. Learn how to ask questions and be curious. That's probably my biggest piece of advice.

I'm not a nosy person, but I'm always thinking 'I wonder why he did that? I wonder why this week he was this much better than last week?' I'm always wanting to ask questions of people. I think my advice would be get involved locally and see where it takes you. Try and maybe write a couple of articles for your local paper. Perhaps you need to go to college to learn some things that might help you on the way. If you've got enthusiasm, determination and you love your sport - why shouldn't you be doing my job?