Visiting Ten Sports' C2K show

On my way back from India to Germany over the weekend I had a stopover in Dubai and I always try to utilise the long stops to meet friends and contacts in football.

This time around I visited the offices-cum-studios of Ten Sports in Dubai's Media City. There I met production guys, saw how Ten produce their program, while I then had an enjoyable evening at the sets of the C2K show (Countdown 2 Kickoff), TenAction+ football show, with anchor Joe Morrison and experts-cum-pundits John 'Budgie' Burridge and Carlton Palmer.

As someone working in football media I am always interested to see the operations of a TV channel. And while being taken into production at Ten Sports I met Joe Morrison, with whom I have had numerous Twitter interactions and who told me that he follows my blog for Indian football. Good to know.

After the initial interaction in the production room, we went across to the set of C2K where Joe introduced me to Budgie and Carlton. All three are interesting individuals, who really enjoy doing the show! The three talk and discuss football - not in a cool, analytical way, but rather with flair and an entertainment aspect attached to it. Watching it from close quarters was really enjoyable.

There was also a football match in-between - Racing Santander vs FC Valencia. Not much happened in the first session, but a lot after the break. During the game we four had interesting discussions about football in general, but especially Indian football then these guys have to cover Indian football too these days. And at this stage I did most of the talking, a topic I speak about for hours...

The show ended, a small chit-chat thereafter and then I went back to my hotel. It surely was an enjoyable visit...


Here some photos on my Facebook Fanpage from the visit .