Bonjour comrades and merriments of the season to one and all! In time honoured tradition, I thought I'd give you a little insight into last Saturday's show from Villa Park.
I'll be honest, I was a bit worried ahead of the programme because Villa were on a dire run of form and manager Gerard Houllier was getting grief from the fans for what he said and did when his side side lost 3-0 to Liverpool at Anfield on Monday night. Thankfully, the club were happy to play ball and gave us great access to the stadium.
My great Midlands adventure started on Wednesday, when I travelled up to film the opening, which you can watch again by taking a look at the online version here...
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I am writing this week's blog in deepest Birmingham preparing for our live show from Villa Park. I am struggling with tiredness at the moment but it has nothing to do with a seven-week-old baby in the house and everything to do
My 'one more wicket' policy was similar to the 'one more game' policy I used to employ on Championship Manager as a student... it was utterly useless and usually ended with me falling asleep about 4am waiting for my team to win the Champions League.
On Monday night, I decided to stay up to the bitter end, fuelled by a supply of mince pies and wine gums. As the wickets began to tumble, I noticed a correlation. Each time I took a bite of a mince pie, England made a breakthrough!
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Greetings one and all! With all eyes on Zurich this week I thought I would give you a behind-the-scenes look at our exclusive with Prime Minister .
I know politicians polarise opinion - especially when they talk about football - but David Cameron (along with , and others) has a crucial role to play this week and it was the perfect time to get his views on all things .
As you read this - as long as it's before Thursday - he is probably involved in some sort of meeting with a Fifa delegate trying to persuade them that England is the place to be in eight years.
You can always tell when we've got an important interview lined up on Focus because you get phone calls from lots of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ big hitters. There were all sorts of people interested in what we would be asking, what line we would take and what we were doing with it afterwards. It was also important to make sure that we were on safe ground editorially and didn't need to balance things up by speaking to every political party out there.
The Panorama programme obviously added a little more weight to the interview and, in the end, it was Mr Cameron's quote about being "frustrated" that made ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News at Six and Ten last Friday and the newspapers on Saturday. I'll be honest, there was something very satisfying about Fiona Bruce saying "you can see the full interview with the prime minister on Football Focus tomorrow at 1215 on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One."
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Welcome comrades. This blog is all about giving you an insight into how Football Focus comes together each week. I do pop up across the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s sporting output so there may be the occasional reference to something other than the beautiful game too.
Have a read and feel free to join in with your comments and questions brothers and sisters.
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