Football editor Mat Kendrick today visited sports journalists at Birmingham City University to discuss his career and some of the stories and challenges he’s faced in his role.
Kendrick began his career by getting an English degree at Wolverhampton University. He then went on to complete a two year training apprenticeship at the Express and Star.
He saw these two years as a “useful grounding”, having to do death knocks which gave him a thicker skin and made him realise this side of journalism wasn’t for him.
Kendrick, who since he was young always wanted to write about his lifelong club Aston Villa, spoke about the way the journalism industry has changed.
In 2007, there were 200 editorial staff working for the Birmingham Mail group, he said. Today there are only 50.
Kendrick highlighted the point that when asking questions to managers or players he would ask the questions fans were wanting to find an answer to.
“I’d much rather have one manger or one player moan at me than 20,000 people on twitter moaning because of the soft questions I’m asking,” he said.
Another key point that was put across about his job was that being a football editor your enjoyment of the job can vary.
He said: “When you’re enjoying the story you’re writing about it’s like a hobby but when you’re not then its back to being like a draining job.”
One quote from Kendrick which took a few by surprise was when he said: “I wouldn’t want to work at Villa, it’s like seeing the west end actors without their make-up.”
Kendrick ended by giving advice to the students
Harvey Lawrence's Sport Blog 