The first ever degree course in the UK specialising solely in football journalism is set to be offered later this year.
The University of Derby has announced the new BA (Hons) course, which will begin in September.
Modules will include photojournalism and reportage, broadcast journalism, football business, marketing and PR, and sports science and coaching for reporters.
The course has been developed after discussions with football clubs and media companies, including the BBC.
The university is aiming for 50pc of students on the course to be female, with statistics suggesting that fewer than 10pc of sports journalists are women.
Students will have use of three radio studios, a television studio, video editing suites, Mac suites and a newsroom using the latest software.
Course leader Keith Perch, left, the former editor of the Derby Telegraph, Leicester Mercury and South Wales Echo, said: “Interest in our national game is so intense that it is regularly propelled from the back to the front pages of our newspapers, has led to an explosion of specialist football websites and has seen football clubs become global brands taking control of their own narrative.
“This new degree reflects the public’s growing appetite for round-the-clock football news and comes at a time when clubs themselves are seeking well-qualified media professionals who can help them build their audiences and communicate directly with fans.”
As part of the course, students will gain practical work experience within the football industry or “relevant media organisations”.
Among those to welcome the course are ITV and BBC sports reporter Jacqui Oatley, who praised the university’s commitment to taking on female students.
She posted on Twitter: “Good to see (the university) trying to redress the gender imbalance in football journalism. Aiming for 50pc female intake.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
…explosion of specialist football websites… they’ll pay the mortgage then!
Report this comment
Back of the net! ….. Seriously though, long overdue and led by someone with the background to develop in students’ work the gravitas needed should sport get promoted to the front pages. Traditional on the job progress through experience, though powerful, always has the weakness, on its own, that when a serious news angle comes along there can be a disproportionate fear of legal action as compared to other areas of news. This of course most of the time turns out to be only a perception, but can be a time consuming newsroom fear nonetheless.
Report this comment
Guaranteed big money maker for the University – loads of applicants, plenty of bums on seats. Smart move money-wise.
Trebles all round.
Good luck to the dozens of ‘football journalism graduates’ churned out three years from now who are likely to have realised in their first term that football journalism is a small niche section of the media which is incredibly hard to break into.
Good luck to them after graduation when the vast majority of those find that there are very few sports jobs out there and the ones that do come up almost universally go to experienced journos.
Good luck to them when they start writing for those freelance agencies which pay £30-50 a shift with no expenses, good luck to them when they start writing for fanzines or websites which pay them a pittance if at all and good luck to them with blogs which turn out similarly to be a waste of time.
Finally good luck to the overwhelming majority who will realise that at the age of 23-24 it has all been a terrible, expensive, (but potentially fun) mistake, as they turn their attention towards doing a ‘real’ job.
Meanwhile, coming to a university near you soon:
1) ‘So you want to be a rock star’, four years BA (Hons)’,
2) ‘Can I please be a spaceman?’, five years BSc (Hons)’
Please apply here….
Report this comment
Load of balls if you ask me! You don’t need a degree to understand the offside trap!
Report this comment
First lesson. If you can’t find a story just LINK someone with something.
eg. Ronaldo has been linked with Waychester Wandererers. Who linked him. Yes that’s right, YOU. Easy! It is meaningless and of course the story is fantasy, but he’s linked forevever! You can even use on TV.
I hope this course encourages the hacks to stick to the facts, instead of filling acres of print with speculation and sheer fantasy, which doesnt help anyone except agents and journalists.
Report this comment
Presumably, it will include a module on how to fill your pages when you are banned from actually attending any of your local club’s matches by a jumped-up owner or manager massively over-stepping the mark?
Report this comment
My thoughts exactly, Argus, although you put it far better than I ever could. The vast majority of these students are going to leave Derby with more than £30,000 of debt and not a hope in hell of finding a job, certainly not one that will ever force them to start repaying their loan. Everybody loses except the university which has pocketed the fees. Seriously, this is no more than obtaining money under false pretences. And what on earth are these students going to do for three years! Six months should be more than enough. As for Fellwalker’s suggestion that football journalists worry the lawyers when they are writing news stories, there was a time when most football journalists had worked as news reporters and possessed legal knowledge. They were journalists who wrote about football, not football fans who wanted to watch matches for free.
Report this comment
I suspect 1% of them will end up at the BBC if they’ve got a mummy and daddy to pay for their rent while they do months if not years worth of unpaid work. The rest will end up at McDonald’s.
Report this comment
Is it April 1 already? I read not long ago that there are more people studying journalism than are employed as journalists. A degree in sports journalism would probably leave these wannabes scratching to find a job but specialising in football at such an early stage is ridiculous. And 50 per cent of places set aside for women? A lot of the women I know hate football so it is hardly surprising there is not a queue of them desperate to spend a lifetime writing about football. Not very PC but true.
Report this comment
This brings to mind an MA degree course in water-skiing run by a Florida college in the 1960s. For about ten thousand dollars you could get a nicely framed certificate saying what a wonderful water-skier you were. However, paying jobs for water-skiers were thin on the ground, and all the water-skiing instructors were working for – you guessed it – the college in question. A win-win situation for the college – a lose-lose situation for the students.
Report this comment
Dear oh deary me ‘ a degree in football writing!? ‘ at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask!
Report this comment
Ah ‘ specialist football websites” so that’s where the money’s to be made on line then,A job writing for those will soon help repay the course fees and isn’t it ironic that the best quote they can come up with is not about validity or need for the course itself but comes from a female sports reporter commenting on how pleased she is to see a 50pc female target intake!
Think it’s a case of Derby Uni finances 1 – students nil
Report this comment
Reportage?
Will they learn how to interview and write stories?
No mention of shorthand.
Report this comment
I genuinely think these courses should be banned. They offer impressionable youngsters the world when in reality it’s three years of sitting around talking about football with no chance of a job at the end of it. We have a nationally recognised body the NCTJ (whether we like them or not) so the Government should be getting tough on courses which don’t meet a set national standard. They certainly should be able to get away with charging the full £9k per year.
Report this comment
Is Chris B suggesting that most football journalists today have not worked as news reporters or possess legal knowledge? That may or may not be his view and it may or may not be correct, I am not looking for an argument but I was making no such relative judgments about the then and now. In my experience hard news and sport are and have been for many years past distinct enough career paths to warrant specialist education/training in both – and where there is a crossover this is all the more important. I see no contradiction in sport being the starting point whereas in the past indentures and attendant news-based training block releases and weekend schools were often something seen by all parties as having to be endured before getting into that tough sink or swim on the job sport progression – and maybe, just maybe, such as legal issues related to sports news, as well as sport’s wider business and social implications, will take up at least part of a three-year course! As it happens in the past I found there was rarely anything as dreary as sports copy from a news hack ‘helping out’ – rewriting that was also a deadline nightmare. Young people in my family are not naive enough to believe that any course promises a regular job, even if they want one, that’s nothing to do with media industries, that’s just how it is in the 21st century – they know my generation was very lucky in having much better conventional opportunities but they will follow their dreams regardless – and rollocks to the student loans (no we are not wealthy, as you know journalists’ families rarely are). We shouldn’t knock it – I for one admire their let’s just do it optimism, it’s more 1960s than the the 1960s were! There I feel better for that – rant over and I’ll happily enjoy discussing it over an old school pint should our paths ever cross Chris B.
Report this comment
This is not a sports journalism course. It is offering a degree in football journalism. And the hope is that 50 per cent of the intake will be women. As I said, is it April 1 already?
Report this comment
It’s actually January 21 and, ironically, the negativity (and hair splitting) in this thread has the hallmarks of many football club supporters’ message boards during the January transfer window. Try and enjoy the day, I’m outdoors living it. Byeee.
Report this comment