Six years ago today, much-loved racehorse Desert Orchid passed away. Now, I regularly bet on the Grand National and tune in occasionally to Channel 4 Racing but why on earth can I recall that date without a moment’s hesitation? Because it was also the day that I started work for Cricket World.
I started out as a fairly eager (naive) editorial assistant with no journalistic qualifications but had looked after forums, blogged (or should that be blooged?) extensively and done a little bit of podcasting. Fast forward to today and I have written around 10,000 articles/match reports, recorded upwards of 1,000 podcasts and about the same number of videos.
Two office moves, two house moves, a couple of relationships, three cars and four mobile phones later I’m still here. All of the colleagues bar two directors of the company I was introduced to on that first day have since moved on. The entire news and publishing industry has changed completely. Where once we published a bimonthly magazine and the odd piece of radio work, now we publish videos daily and social media has transformed the way people interact and digest their news.
We’ve managed to keep up. I’ve learnt (self-taught, most of it) all sorts of new skills, from graphic design to building and managing websites to video editing. My efforts in self-publishing my first three books have helped Cricket World publish a couple with more in the pipeline.
There are two great misconceptions about my job. Firstly, that all I have to do is sit and watch cricket all day and then do a bit of writing. If only that were the case. Secondly, that once our summer is over, there is not much for me to do. Ever heard of cricket in India, South Africa or Australia? My winters are busier than my summers, and I don’t mind that at all.
I am very lucky to be able to have a job which challenges, intrigues and surprises me on a daily basis, where no two days are the same. And even luckier am I to still be enjoying writing and talking about cricket (and doing a huge amount of other stuff besides) for a living, six years on from making my debut, so to speak.
I am certainly a more polished article than the eager novice hurdler I once was but I still have a way to go become the champion chaser that Dessie was, although there is one thing we have in common: I’m no left-hander either.