Oliver “Juice” Wilson has always had a passion for broadcasting. Through it, Wilson discovered Midlands soccer and its great football cathedrals.
Wilson is an
English freelance match commentator, writer for football.com, as well as the
voice of the World Football Daily show today. Writing was never Wilson’s
strongest suit, and so the radio was always a much more comfortable medium for
him.
It all began
in the biggest money-making industry in England: the English Premier League. However,
Wilson was attracted to a much simpler soccer landscape: the Midlands. The
Midlands are an important basin of the industrial revolution and thus steeped
in history when it comes to English soccer. Wilson’s first job was doing live
commentary for Birmingham hospital radio.
But it was his keen eye for architecture that attracted him to the
Midlands. In effect, Wilson took an interest in the Midlands greatest football
stadia, such as Villa Park or the Hawthorns.
On the night
of July 23rd, Wilson told us as much over Skype, as he was just
retuning from a pre-season friendly between Luton Town and Aston Villa. “As a
commentator, I’d never been to Luton Town before,” said Wilson, “and again, I’m
a big fan of football grounds in general, as pieces of architecture … There’s
always something going on in the ground that can hook you … adding that bit of
character to your match report.”
But today, Wilson
swapped the Midlands for the California sunshine. Waking up every morning to
host the World Football Daily show, Wilson is living his broadcasting dream.
It’s doesn’t even feel like work for Wilson in fact: “You get up at 5:30 in the
morning driving to LA, but you don’t feel tired, you feel buzzed and ready to
go, and you just wanna talk football with everybody.”
Transcript
Ogo Sylla: Hello, we are
here with Oliver Wilson: writer for football.com, freelance football
commentator as well as the host and voice of the World Football Daily show. How
are you doing Mr. Wilson?
Oliver Wilson: It’s an
absolute pleasure mate. I’m tired but I’m ready for this. I’m ready to go.
Ogo Sylla: Let’s get
started then. Let’s begin with how you got into working in the Premier League.
It’s the big league with all the money is. It’s the land of milk and honey when
it comes to soccer, so how did it all get started for you?
Oliver Wilson: It was really
interesting actually. I was finishing my undergrad at university, and was
wondering what I wanted to do with my politics degree. And I decided that I
didn’t wanna do politics. I’ve always been a huge sports fan ever since I was
tiny, and big football fan, big motor racing fan, etc. And a couple people
said: “why don’t you start seeing if there are avenues into sport?” So I
started my own blog and started practicing writing about the NBA, the NFL,
football and whatever I wanted to write down. My then girlfriend actually said:
“Oh, by the way, my stepdad is a football commentator for Wolverhampton Wanderers,
in the Midlands. Next time you seem him you should talk to him about it.” And I
was chatting to him about and he got me into the press box at Wolverhampton
Wanderers the last day of the season, when they were playing Sunderland. I sat
next to a chap called Phil Kampeon. He and I had a good old chat and I helped
him out with his work, I was kinda his eyes whilst he was writing the articles
he was doing for the day. And then we met again about five months later whilst
I was on some work experience with a radio station. And we got chatting again
and kinda had a brief catch-up and then about a week after that meeting, he
gave me a phone call.
Ogo Sylla: And you were
covering for the Midlands, was this the first time that you were coming in
contact with high-level athletes?
Oliver Wilson: Yeah, yeah,
it was. I’d never done anything close to this. I’d met a couple of footballers
during EURO 2000, me and my dad went off to the England camp, ‘cause we had
some tickets for the tournament, and managed to kinda talk our way into a
training session. Ended meeting a couple of the players. Not in an interview
sense, it was more “oh wow that’s Martin Keown in front of us.” It was the first
time that I’d done any sort of player interview, or interviews with any sort of
athlete in general. Especially top-flight, I’d never gotten anywhere near close
to doing anything like that.
Ogo Sylla: Do you
remember who was your first interview and how did you feel about that?
Oliver Wilson: Hmm, trying
to think… My first interview… I was really nervous, I’m not gonna lie. I
remember the first interview that I did alone with Steven Ward, of
Wolverhampton Wanderers, down when Wolves played Arsenal. And both Ward and
Kevin Doyle, I interviewed on my own that day. I was trying so hard for my
right hand, that was holding the Dictaphone, to not shake that all the shake
from my right arm was going down into my body and down into my left leg. So my
left leg, at kinda eyeshot, was shaking all over the place. And I was trying to
rack my brain for questions and follow-up questions, and I was so nervous at
this point. Yeah I remember being, not scared but incredibly on edge at that
point.
Ogo Sylla: How did it feel
covering the Midlands area? ‘Cause obviously it’s not the big glamour area when
you think about English football but it’s a very historical part of it of
course.
Oliver Wilson: I guess
covering the Midlands, it was still massive to me. And the fact that I was just
covering Premiere League football; I mean there are people that would give
anything to go to a Premiere League game as a fan. Let alone go into the press
box and see the manager and the players after the game. So covering the
Midlands never seemed like a chore or as not enough for me. The Midlands was
still a great epicenter of football.
Ogo Sylla: You’re coming
back from covering a pre-season friendly between Aston Villa and Luton Town, if
I’m not mistaken. Tell me, how did that game go?
Oliver Wilson: As a
commentator, I’d never been to Luton Town before. And again, I’m a big fan of
football grounds in general, as piece of architecture, as buildings with their
own kind of style and character to them. And going to Luton tonight was quite a
nice first experience, because it’s right in the residential area of Luton and
of the city. It’s like the ground is built in to the suburban area. I love
watching football in a football ground rather than watching it on TV. You can
see how the play spreads out more, you can really get a feel for the flow of
the game more, and you generally don’t have a TV commentator jabbering in your
ear and stuff. And you can take in the atmosphere as well. I mentioned earlier
to you, before we started recording, we had the Villa fans had taken down some
smoke bombs, and they were setting those off. I don’t know if it was out of
frustration or not, ‘cause their side was playing badly this evening. You had
the Villa fans kinda doing that, trying to get a party atmosphere going,
slightly trying to boost their side on. Few fans got thrown out and ejected
from the ground… I mean this is a preseason friendly. I never though I’d see a
set of fans getting five or six people getting ejected from the ground, at a
pre-season friendly against a Conference [League] side that means nothing. But
there was still that intensity to it, and it’s those sorts of kinda antics and
moments that really get you gripped back into a game, however bad it is.
There’s always something going on in the ground that can hook you and that you
could get a story out of and start seeing a story or adding that bit of
character to your match report or something like that. So it was really fun to
do. But I go to every single football game and think: “I’m just so lucky to be
able to watch football and to make some sort of living out of it.
Ogo Sylla: Well let’s
move away from the Midlands a bit, come to this side of the ocean in America,
and what you’re doing as a host for World Football Daily.
Oliver Wilson: Finding
myself as the host was very peculiar. The whole “Juice” thing comes from my
nickname at university, because I’m O.J. Wilson and I played American football.
So it was O.J., like O.J. Simpson, juice, etc, etc. And the fact he [Rafael
Gonzales] said – seeing my Skype name – “what’s with the ‘Juice’?” And I told
him and he said: “Oh that’s so cool! We can turn it into like the ‘Juice
report’ or something like that here [World Football Daily show] on this show!”
“So let’s use it, let’s go with it.” So I got involved in coming on once a week
or coupling of weeks, and talking about Premiere League football with the guys
on the show, and at that point it was Sophie [Nicolaou] and Martin [Rodgers].
And I’ve always wanted to do radio. I’ve wanted to do football commentary for a
long time. I’ve always liked the idea of radio work or television work in some
way, shape or form. And I was just chatting with Rafa [Gonzales] after
appearing on one of the shows one day and said: “Oh man, I’d love to be able to
come out to California and work with you guys for 10 days, wouldn’t that be
great?” And he [Rafael Gonzales] said: “Well we can do that. If you can pay the
flight, and pay for yourself to be out here, we will give you 10 days of coming
out and hosting the show with us.” And I thought that I’m never gonna get that
in the UK, so I figured this is like an investment in my career. I had some
savings I’d been able to accumulate and I spent a bit of money on getting my
flight down to Los Angeles and spending 10 days working with World Football
Daily. And after that, they invited me back to do the summer to cover for
Martin [Rodgers]. And then it just kinda went, rolling on from there really. It
never felt like work. You get up at 5:30 in the morning driving to LA, but you
don’t feel tired, you feel buzzed and ready to go, and you just wanna talk
football with everybody.
Ogo Sylla: Having worked
in broadcasting, doing match commentary and punditry as you host World Football
Daily, and writing, which one do you prefer?
Oliver Wilson: The thing
that I love doing the most is radio football commentary. There is such an
adrenaline rush about trying to put down everything you see. Because when you
do radio football commentary, people can’t see, you’re painting the picture for
them and describing everything. But also keeping the description moving and
flowing as the game goes on. And it’s amazing. Once you get into that flow,
once you get into that rhythm, you just can’t stop. And I think radio
broadcasting in general is the thing that I prefer the most. But I think that
my radio work has always come a little more naturally to me, and I’ve always
really enjoyed doing it. And I think it’s a really fun way and it’s a great
way, especially with modern technology, to connect with people as well. And I
think it’s something where audio bytes, podcasts, little video segments on
websites are gonna become more and more popular and people are gonna become
more and more popular; people are gonna take in their sports information more
through audio and video.
Ogo Sylla: Well thank
you very much Oliver Wilson. It’s been a pleasure and great talking to you.
Oliver Wilson: Thanks very
much Ogo, it was an absolute pleasure. I hope I didn’t waffle on too long for
you there mate.
Ogo Sylla: No, it’s been
great. Thank you very much.
Oliver Wilson: Cheers man.
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