大象传媒

Vienna

I have a confession to make. I'm starting to feel like a stalker. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hiding round corners waiting for players to come past before jumping out on them with a microphone at the ready.

大象传媒 as a roving TV crew is perfectly ethical, but, as the tournament's progressed, it just feels like we've needed a little more stamina, patience and ingenuity of late to get the job done.

Vienna

Prior to the start of Euro 2008, the 大象传媒 ran a campaign across its various outlets asking "who will you support?" in the absence of the home nations. Presenters were asking guests, reporters, etc what their thoughts were. But, when the question was put to me on Radio 5 Live, I could only say who I was looking forward to watching, rather than winning. I really didn't mind who won.

But those thoughts of ambivalence disappeared after spending time with Croatia. In my first blog, I wrote about what a character their coach Slaven Bilic is. Since then, having seen them overcome the handicap of losing star striker to win all three group games, including a hugely courageous performance against Germany, I have to admit to feeling utterly deflated by their dramatic quarter-final defeat by Turkey.

Vienna

It may only have been a few days since I made my blogging debut en route from Vienna to Klagenfurt, but it feels like about a month, such is the amount of travelling we've done.

We've covered most of Austria going to football matches, interviewing players and managers, filming the stunning scenery, trying in vain to get my radio satellite dish to work and pleading with editing genius Nick to stop telling his shockingly bad jokes.

All to the soundtrack of "Mercy" by Duffy. It appears that every radio station plays it as soon as we tune in. We're begging them for mercy now - please stop!

Vienna/Klagenfurt

As we approach the end of our first week in Austria, I finally have a few minutes to reflect on our experiences to far.

Actually, I have more than a few minutes, seeing as it's a four-hour journey south-west from our base in Vienna to our home for the next week near Klagenfurt.

I'm sitting in the middle row of the van with our fixer/driver/sound man Markus, who's skilfully negotiating the autobahn, producer S茅an alongside him, while cameraman Jon and editing genius Nick are in the back with me. Are we nearly there yet? Far from it...

What's your role at Euro 2008?
I'll be reporting for 大象传媒 Television and Radio 5 Live.
Based in Austria, I'll be making features for various television programmes (live/highlights shows, Football Focus, online), interviewing managers and players after games, reporting on stories for 5 Live and writing a blog for the 大象传媒 Sport website. We'll be trying to take people's minds off the fact that the Home Nations aren't there by, er, doing features on the teams that beat them to it! So we might have our work cut out....