Day at the LNER Community stadium with England Rugby Union Men’s team

We met as a group outside the press and media entrance at 8.30am. The press officer, allowing us to pass through the doors at the LNER Community Stadium, handed us our blue press jackets. We then headed through to the refreshments room where we waited to be briefed on rules and expectations.

After a chat with our peers on what shots were best to get and who we were basing our individual stories on, we began to set up our film equipment to save time as we knew we would get 20 minutes to capture as much content as we could.

The England Rugby PR team gave us a briefing telling us where our boundaries were around the pitch side to capture footage. We also were informed of the timings of players coming out to train.

At 10am we began to take up our positions at the pitch side weighing up where to be to acquire the best footage we could. We also interviewed the crowd to gain insight into their thoughts and feelings. Within minutes the players were welcomed out of the stadium by the announcer and the crowd of 8,500 supporters. We began capturing our shots and manoeuvring around the pitch side to get the best angles we could.

It was incredible to see these world class players such as Marcus Smith and Alex Mitchell up close and to witness their amazing athleticism and skill. This felt like being a sports journalist for real.

Forty minutes later, the organisers asked the media personnel to leave the pitch side as our time was up. We spent some time reflecting on our shots and our experience out there as photographers. In pairs, we began to discuss our intros and outros for our individually constructed pieces in the training session.

Once fans began to slowly leave the stadium in small numbers at a time, we took up positions outside the press/media entrance to gain more footage on this and capture our intros and outros. When we were happy with the footage we had captured, we began to disassemble our photography equipment and packed up ready for a quick getaway out of the rain. Watching England training and being up and amongst all the press stuff is an amazing experience.

Written by: First year, Sports Journalism student Nathan Konya