Football academia

Been there, done it, worn the T shirt. I refer to the academic route that I took in earlier life before starting my career.  Though I do update every year via cpd to stay abreast of latest knowledge and tactics pertinent to my profession.  I believe that there are over 40 letters that I can use after my name if I wanted to relate to qualifications and achievements etc (BA Hons MA FCIM MISPAL Chartered Marketer MInstF…………).  Proud as I am of this collection, and would advocate everyone consider seriously further education, I bleat often that it is the “University of Life” that really matters. Most of that which I have achieved has combined that initial knowledge with on the job experience and commercial acumen.

I started this observation in that sometimes people debate the pros and cons of continuing education.  At this point I would like to say that I have recently had contact with two leading academics relating to the football world.  I shared a stage as speaker with Sean Hamil.  He is a Lecturer at Birkbeck University and has been Director of Supporters Direct, the UK Government-sponsored organisation established to assist football supporters to set up trusts (co-operatives) which invest equity in their football clubs.  He is Author to “State of the Game” and “Who Owns Football?: The Governance and Management of the Club Game Worldwide”. The second was Dr John Beech who I met through Twitter and our common use of the #footballfinance (hash tag).  He is a Senior Research Fellow at Coventry University, where he is Head of Sport & Tourism at the Applied Research Centre in Sustainable Regeneration (SURGE). He received the Football Supporters’ Federation Writer of the Year Award for season 2009/10.  From a limited collaboration to date I can reinforce a belief that the commercial business world and academia have much common ground and can work together to achieve things.