The 2018 Kick it out Conference took place at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium
Arsenal host successful Kick it Out Raise Your Game 18 conference
by Steve Clare, Emirates Stadium
The Annual Raise Your Game conference organised by Kick It Out took place at Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium on Monday. Kick It Out exists to combat racism and discrimination in sport but this conference took equality one step further. It gave young people who are hopeful of working in soccer a chance to receive advice which may be normally impossible to access. Attendees, known as mentees, were given the chance to meet experts in various fields, known as mentors.
Troy Townsend of Kick it Out introduced the two guest hosts Samantha Johnson and Bianca Westwood.
“This journey is a wonderful journey, he said of a career in football though he could have been equally talking about the growth of Raise Your Game over the last seven years.
During their introduction, both women described the difficulties they faced getting into sports journalism which covered gender issues, colour and even accent. Ms Westwood said she was encouraged to drop her East London or cockney accent. She didn’t. Samantha Johnson’s advice restated her pre-conference words to attendees:
“Be persistent! You have to be multi-talented. If you want to be a reporter, hone your skills as a reporter, but you’ve got to learn how to edit, how to write and how to network, not just on social media but face to face as well.
“I hope the mentees leave the event feeling inspired and optimistic about their future and their careers.”
An impressive panel consisting of Times journalist Henry Winter, and ex players Rachel Yankey, Alex Scott and Michael Johnson then addressed the crowd.
The over 300 mentees had the chance to meet mentors, those already working inside the football industry. Inspiring though the speeches were, this was the real ‘meet and drink’ of the day, and the looks of sheer joy among the mentees as they received advice on furthering their careers from people and organisations they may have felt out of their reach, was palpable.
Times journalist Henry Winter (r) was among the mentors who gave up time to advice young journalists
There were young men and women, people of colour, women in Islamic headscarves; in short a complete microcosm of England’s population, but admittedly not quite yet a microcosm of those working inside the industry. But events like RYG18 will be a mechanism to redressing that imbalance.
Organisations from clubs like hosts Arsenal FC to newspapers like the Independent, were joined by radio stations, coaching advisers, sports video games makers and PR agencies to give aspiring employees advice.
The Premier League were among the sponsors and their trophy made a rare appearance inside the Emirates. At the end of the day, Townsend seemed visibly moved in summing up the Conference declaring it the best of the eight he has seen. In a warm conversation I had with him at the end, we talked about bringing an event like this to the USA.
Mentees listen to the opening speeches
