NEW!! Paul Parker Killed My Career by Matt Riley: 2020

Paul Parker Killed My Career

by Matt Riley

So; I’d finally made it. After years of struggle to promote my speciality product in the mini market of English content about Thai football, I had been asked onto the regional magazine show Fox Sports Central twice in the last week. The feedback from both shows was positive and I’d struck up a strong rapport with Fox’s affable host, Steve Dawson. Producers from Fox had been in touch to tell me that I would need to be a contracted member of the team going forward and that they would start to prepare the paperwork and send it from Singapore over to my base in Bangkok. Little did I know that the contract would take over a year to arrive and, thanks to former Manchester United and England legend Paul Parker, this would be the last time I would ever appear on the show…

I had developed a preshow routine over the previous weeks. Steve would send me the questions he wanted to touch on earlier in the day. I would start by researching the key points I wanted to develop and try (fairly) subtly to product place names of players I worked with like Charyl Chappuis into my answers. I also made sure I had my Suphanburi FC club shirt ready for product placement of the club sponsors. President Top was paying my wages after all. Once research was complete, I would walk around our “high so” local housing estate known as Hyde Park, silently mouthing the key points I wanted to hit (probably looking like a man two thirds of a bottle into the deadly Samsong local whisky to the wealthy locals) and working out how I could give Steve the best insight into the world of Thai football. Then it was back to check the Bangkok Post to see if their impressively forthright sports writer Tor Chittinand had any insights on the latest story and then I was pretty much set. The final job was to put Post Its with the key stats around the screen of my computer ready to drop into my Skype report and I was good to go.

But this time, things were different. Usually we would film in the mid afternoon so they had time to edit the content and check for timing. But the usual deadline came and went as I sat in my spare room going through my lines and coaching myself about keeping my head still with a well modulated voice that didn’t spin off into the cadences of local radio DJs. Later, much later and just before going on air, I had a message from the producer telling me that everything was pushed back as the previous guest (Paul Parker) had turned up late,  delaying everything else. This didn’t seem to be a problem at the time. The editing team seemed rushed and  stressed, but that was understandable with such a short deadline looming before the evening show. Anyway, I was prepared. Steve was the consummate professional, I knew his questions and was ready with my responses. What could possibly go wrong?

Usually we would go through everything before going on air, checking levels and the quality of the online connection. This time, the producer went through the problems of time with me and how we needed to crack on. The team in the editing booth were nervous but friendly and all desperate to get this segment done, so we dived in. I mentioned that I couldn’t hear Steve in the studio, but their increasing stress levels seemed to be focussing their mind less on getting this segment right and more on editing the click bait content of Paul Parker so that he came across well and would maybe recommend the show to some of his former Red Devils team mates.

When the show started, I had a crystal clear connection with everyone in the sound booth. In my ear mic I could hear all the stories of their weekend and what they needed to do to ready that day’s show. The only problem was that Steve’s voice was like listening to someone at the other side of a busy party. Cutting through the immediate noise was unnerving because, like listening to a conversation from your mother in law when the football is on, you think you can block out the immediate content and concentrate on the one that matters, but her tones are troublingly familiar and constantly tricked your brain into focussing on her banal ramblings about her unhelpful neighbours.

I decided to try and style the interview out by answering the questions I had been given earlier and hoping Steve had asked them, then trying desperately to filter out any follow up questions from the editing booth banter pouring into my ears in high definition. The result wasn’t pretty. Looking back on the video, one of the questions I guessed wrongly and then, when I started to suspect what I had done, I cocked my ear to the screen like a Victorian pensioner in need of an ear trumpet. The look in my eyes was less rabbit in a headlight and more rabbit in a bear trap with Farmer Palmer calmly cocking his shotgun nearby.

The show went out and, watching my segment through platted fingers, I knew they had needed to try and edit any salvageable content from me into something less like a televisual car crash. Exactly the last thing they needed on a day like that, with the Parker content still not ready. And like that, the phone and emails fell silent. All communication was now one way; from me to them. Bizarrely, a year later I received a seven page contract from Fox Sports to employ me as a commentator. As far as I know, a copy of it still sits in the safe at Suphanburi FC after I gave it to the President, thinking forlornly that this would propel me back into the Fox Sports central orbit.