FootballFanCast Internship Review

I was very eager and even more elated to have landed a position within the internship scheme at FootballFanCast this spring/summer. I am a huge football fan and love everything about the game, so to get the opportunity to write issues about the sport on a daily basis was a great feeling for me.

Studying it through the majority of my educational years, journalism is a big passion of mine. I have experience in the journalistic field where by I produced a number of articles during my years in higher education. However, prior to me being accepted to the FFC internship, I had never actually written a sports article. I was very grateful to be chosen out of the vast numbers who applied for the internship, and as a result, promised myself to seize the moment and produce work to the best of my abilities for the upcoming 3 months.

My work varied; in the sense that I was open to write articles about any club other than the one I support. This gave me more knowledge and updated me on other clubs’ issues, which was good for me, as I like to keep on top of everything going on in the Premier League and in Europe. My motivational levels throughout the 12 weeks never dropped, and this is evident within my work. I set a personal target for myself which was to attempt to beat my weekly reads every week. Unfortunately this did not go to plan, but I did manage to accumulate some great numbers which was a satisfying accomplishment, and subsequently boosted my confidence for the commencing week ahead.

There were some weeks within the internship which were tough, and to be honest draining in some cases, but my love of writing about the sport never faded. I enjoyed producing every single article I wrote, and was pleased to see that my work was popular amongst the readers of the site. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing readers view your work and post comments (even if some were rude), more importantly, the best thing was to see what you had accomplished on a weekly basis through the reads. The group of interns were given more responsibilities as the weeks progressed. We had to assign ourselves as well as our intern mates’ articles during the last few weeks of the internship. I liked this aspect of the scheme as it was a challenge to find the right articles suited for your assigned mate as well as articles which would generate good reads. I never encountered any real problems during my 12 weeks. If I did have any queries on an article or an idea, my editor was always there to lend a helping hand.

The 12 weeks taught me how to manage my time as a writer, enhance my researching skills, as well as give me valuable experience within the journalism sector of my preferred area. I applied for the internship purely for the fact that I wanted to gain experience within football journalism and showcase my writing skills. I definitely feel like I achieved what I wanted within the 3 months. I enjoyed every single day of the internship and looked forward to doing my work, made really good friends with the other interns on the plan, and can’t thank FFC enough for the opportunity they gave me. A great experience and one which will no doubt help me with my future plans.

Tony Merakli