Inside Sky Sports – David Jones – S2E12

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Rob Hanna: [00:00:23] Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast, Powered by Kissoon Carr. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week, I’m delighted to be joined by David Jones, a well renowned sports presenter working for Sky Sports, and a non-executive director of Sunderland Association Football Club. He currently fronts the live coverage super Sunday and Monday night football, so a very big welcome, David!

David Jones: [00:00:46] Hi Robert, good to be here, good to speak to you. 

Rob Hanna: [00:00:49] Many thanks for taking the time to join us today. You may not know, but on the, Legally Speaking Podcasts, we have an icebreaker question, which is related to Suits, but given we’ve got you on today, I wanted to mix it up a little bit and it’s on a scale of 1 to 10, so we thought we’d make it football related.

So, um, as our icebreaker for you, how successful would you rate on a scale of 1 to 10, the inclusion of VAR, since it’s important to the game on a scale of 1 to 10?

David Jones: [00:01:21] Corr blimey. Probably… it’s less than 5 I would say. But, I don’t want to completely kill it before it’s, it’s really got working properly. So maybe I’ll say 4.

I think in principle it works, but the execution has not been good enough for much more than 4 right now. 

Rob Hanna: [00:01:40] Yeah. I think that’s a fair judgment. 4 is probably about right. I should, uh, I should point out I’m a, I’m a Liverpool fan, so I know we’ve had a few decisions, so I’ve be a little bit quiet about things.

David Jones: [00:01:53] Everyone, thinks they’ve had decisions that have gone against them. So it’s quite rare to speak to someone who thinks they’ve had decisions that go for them.  

Rob Hanna: [00:02:00] [Laughter] Exactly. But I do want to start at the beginning because you do a lot within sport and of course business. So, for listeners, probably not so, obviously very familiar with you in terms of your Sky Sports, but let’s talk about sort of, a bit about your background, before Sky Sports.

David Jones: [00:02:16] I always wanted to be a journalist. I had work experience from quite a young age in in various forms of journalism, newspapers, television, radio, and was really feeling it out a little bit because I think I was very lucky in that sense that a lot of people don’t really formulate their ideas and what they want to do, sometimes until after they’ve left university. Um, and then sometimes even later than that. So I was, I was very driven, very focused from a young age. I pursued a career as a journalist, uh, and tried to get work experience wherever I could. I did a history degree. Then I did a postgraduate course after that, uh, in newspaper journalism.

And it was, it was really a case of picking up elements of law, administration, um, basic journalism techniques, but also shorthand, which was, which was something which was absolutely paramount. Certainly, for those couple of years I worked on a newspaper. And I, I worked, uh, I did my, my postgrad course in Sheffield and I got my first newspaper job. My first job at all, at the Derbyshire Times in Chesterfield. Now that was a weekly newspaper, which I knew nothing of before I, I went for an interview. Well, that is to start, I did some research in the days, you know, the days leading up to it. And on the actual day itself, I managed to get to town early and did a bit of groundwork on Chesterfield and managed to get myself a little the story. I can’t remember what it was. It was something to do with the marketplace and traders, and I took that to the newspaper and told them I’d already found them a story for that paper. And I managed to get a job there and it was a great grounding for me because it was, it was one of those places where you got to do everything, got to try a hand in every aspect of, of the paper. So I was writing stuff on politics and we had Tony Benn as our local MP. So I had early involvement with him. Uh, lots of crime because it was a, a huge, hugely deprived area and still is, North Derbyshire after the pit closures. Ah, so lots of socioeconomic problems, which, which generated a lot of column inches in newspapers. And, and business sections as well. I was the business writer for the paper, so I had contact with a lot of local businesses and I didn’t really get involved in sport until my sort of last year there. When Chesterfield managed to get themselves to the FA Cup semi-finals, which if you think now, Chesterfield are not even a football league team. I mean, it was extraordinary at the time. 

Rob Hanna: [00:04:27] Yeah.

David Jones: [00:04:28] It was an amazing story, which a lot of people bought into, but they, they played Middlesbrough, which is my hometown. In the FA Cup semi-finals at Old Trafford and I went there and, uh, really wrote kind of pieces around the football rather than football reports themselves.

But I suppose off the back of that. Then the sports desk would, would lean on me at the weekend to, to help them out with match reports covering Chesterfield. So, I got used to doing that as a sort of an aside and found that very enjoyable and probably enjoyed it more than the day to day that I was doing for the actual newspaper.

So, when it got to. Having qualified as a, as a fully qualified professional journalist, when you have to sit more exams after a couple of years. Uh, then I was free really to, to go wherever I liked, to move from the newspaper, and they were aware of that at the time, so they didn’t try and stop me doing that.

But I kind of thought my next job would be another daily paper. Um, maybe like a bigger city, like Sheffield or Bristol or Newcastle, something like that. No. But instead I, I plumped for this advert, which I saw in the Guardian newspaper, which was advertising the launch of Sky Sports news, the first ever 24 hour sports news channel, and they were taking all-comers to do all sorts of different jobs.

So I threw my hat in the ring, didn’t hear anything for several months, and then was invited down for an interview, which I, I turned up with an actual video of me out and about around Chesterfield, interviewing people at the football clubs. Then Derbyshire, playing in Chesterfield, at that time, the cricket team.

So, I went and interviewed the head coach. So, you know, I put all this together, um, with the help of a colleague who had a video camera and a really basic editing tool. And you know, took that video VHS down to, to my future boss and managed to convince him that I was worth a gamble on. And it was a gamble at the time, you know, a, lad from, from the Derbyshire Times in Chesterfield coming to work for a big national TV company. And, um, yeah, my foot was in the door. 

Rob Hanna: [00:06:21] Yeah. Well that’s a fascinating story and thanks for, thanks for sharing that. And I love the sort of inclusion of the old VHS and all the little bits of sort of hustling you had to do a along the way, so that’s really, really insightful. But just in terms of sport then, were you always into sport at school? Was football your main sport? 

David Jones: [00:06:37] I was sports mad, uh, from a very early age. And I suppose I grew up really with a cricket bat in my hands. That was my, my big passion. And play, you know, nonstop with my brother and older brother who’s two and a half years older than me, uh, in the back garden, my dad was cricket mad as well. Also, a big rugby fan, but he was less of a football fan. I suppose I’ve found that naturally growing up in an area which was, which was big on football, I was in the Northeast, we grew up just south of Middlesbrough. And, you know, it was a big passionate football area that whole Northeast. Um, so you couldn’t really escape it. So, I think I just kind of fell into that really. And I was always obsessed with the statistical side of football, in the same way that I was with cricket. You know, I used to carry a Wisden around and, I used to collect the football year books as well on an annual basis. And um, yeah, I mean, at school I played everything.

I was captain of the cricket team for the district. Captain of the school football team, and it’s interesting at the time. When I was coming through the school system, there were a lot of strikes and so we didn’t have many fixtures and when we did the coaches, the teachers were basically saying that we’re not going to organize this for you. You’ve got to get yourselves organized. So, 11 years old, I was picking the school team. So, I had a hundred I think it was about 130 boys to pick from at the school I went to. Yeah. Mixed comprehensive school there were about 250 in every year, it was big school. So, I was doing that. And, and you know, was mad about that and really into tactics at an early age, trying to kind of work out if there was another system rather than four, four, two. 

Rob Hanna: [00:08:09] [Laughter]

David Jones: [00:08:10] Which I don’t think many can find. [Laughter] and then, I mean, yeah, lots of athletics and, and then, uh, hockey as well. So pretty good at all these things, but, but not really exceptional at any of them, I think it’s fair to say. 

Rob Hanna: [00:08:26] Yeah. Well it sounds like you kept yourself very busy. So, um, good to, good to hear that. And you know, fast forward to, to the modern day, you know, everyone would want me to ask, you know, it sounds like the, you know, the dream job, Sky Sports Presenter. But just, just talk us through what a sort of typical working week actually would look like and how much of a logistical operation is it to put on like a Monday night football show and your involvement with that?

David Jones: [00:08:48] Okay. So, if I, if I’m doing a big Super Sunday, maybe in Manchester, which is quite likely, or Liverpool, followed by Monday Night Football. My, my working week would probably start on the Wednesday or the Thursday. I’d try and hold it back until the Thursday, and then that’s the process when I start doing my research. I’ll start, you know, researching the game, researching the teams in particular. Start building my, um, my stats pages around those games, and we’ve got teams of guys that will, will pull together great documents of stats and I will be very conscious about going through them and, and then trying to condense this vast information overload down into half a page of A4. I’ll do that for Super Sunday. Then I’ll do a separate one for the Monday Night Football. So that’s sort of Thursday and Friday. Friday I’ll go into the offices at Sky, Sky Studios and I have a couple of different production things. One with the Sunday team, one with the Monday team, and that’s just to kick a few ideas around. Sunday at that stage is becoming quite set in stone, even on a Friday. You know, we’ve got very strong ideas at that point, what we’ll be talking about in the hour before the game. Um, and, and I will be starting to think about potential scenarios for after the game. What if this team has lost? What if it’s a draw? What if? What if that team’s one, um, where could these conversations lead?

Uh, because I never want to be in that last hour of the program on a Sunday scratching my head thinking I’m not sure what I’m going to talk about now. I’m always thinking of what’s next. So, so Sunday we’ll deal with itself first and Saturday then will involve travel. I coach my son’s football team, uh, on a Saturday morning, and then I will basically get home, watch that game as much as I can, the lunch time kick off, and then I’m on my way really to Manchester or Liverpool. And my evening will revolve around, again, watching the evening game and then revisiting my scripts for the Sunday to see the impact of the Saturday football as much as anything. And then reading around the local press and just trying to make sure that every stone has been turned and, and, um, you know, I haven’t left anything to chance. On the Sunday itself, we always meet for a production meeting at 9.30am and we’ll rehearse around 10.30am. And then, um, we go on air at one o’clock. We’re off air at 7.30pm generally. And if I’m up in the Northwest, we’ve got to get back to London. So, we’ll generally catch a train. I’m getting back home at about midnight Sunday night, and then into the office for a production meeting at 10 o’clock on Monday morning. And, and you know, that’s, um, you’ve got to try and refresh your brain a little bit. So, after a couple of hours of meetings in which we’re knocking around ideas for the show, challenging each other on what we want to talk about analysis wise, I will then go off and do some scripting again. And what I mean by that, I don’t have autocue, we don’t use autocue on our live football programmes. Yeah, well at least I don’t anyway. I’m not sure if others do, but –

Rob Hanna: [00:11:49] Yeah.

David Jones: [00:11:50] I’ve got an iPad that I will refer to. I’ve got some ideas of things I want to say at the top of the programme over certain pictures, um, things I might use going to breaks and coming out of breaks that, that kind of thing. Then, uh, I’ll, I’ll go off and have a spin with Jamie Carragher. We’ll do a spin class and we’ll blow the cobwebs away for an hour, which is a really important thing for me, cause it gives you a, a complete mental refresh. And then we’re in the studio again. We’re rehearsing it at 3.30pm and we’ll have a little break at sort of half five for an hour. And then, suited and booted back in, made up, 6.30pm ready to go at 7pm and off air at 11pm and home by midnight. So, like by the time Tuesday comes along, it’s fair to say you don’t get a lot out of me, on a Tuesday morning.

Rob Hanna: [00:12:33] [Laughter] So as effortless as you make it seem onscreen, from what I’m gleaming from that, it’s a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of research, there’s a lot of things that actually go into it. Um, and you know, a coupled in with the travel it’s pretty full on. But yeah, no, thanks for, for articulating that. I think it’s good for people to get the idea. But listen, there’s loads of contentious topics around the world of sports at the moment, given we’re in the unfortunate situation of the Coronavirus. And you know, notably one of the topics, um, you know, that’s been coming into discussion in the football world, of course, is around furloughing up their employees under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and you know, and what’s your view on whether players should take a pay cut and you know, what more do you think football clubs could be doing for their local communities during this time? 

David Jones: [00:13:16] Looking from the outside, I’m really chuffed that they came up with this initiative by themselves, um, for the NHS. I think that’s a brilliant move. They didn’t have to be corralled into that. Those, those plans are ongoing, they were in negotiation to do that. But you’re talking about a lot of players that you’ve got to get physically to have these conversations at the moment, it’s actually a real challenge.

We’re finding that at Sky right now actually, where we’re trying to have any kind of conversations, it’s, it’s very difficult to do. Um, when you, when you’re trying to speak to more than one person. So, you know, they were going to do that and that’s a brilliant initiative. Uh, I welcome what Southampton have done, which, uh, is the ten percent deferral, which, which I think probably when you go through the numbers um, looks about right to me, I mean, it’s, the thing is, it’s a club by club basis.

Rob Hanna: [00:14:03] Yeah.

David Jones: [00:14:03] So you could say the Premier League should be doing this, but it’s a totally different thing, if you’re a League Two club and you’re living hand to mouth, you don’t have a Billionaire benefactor. You don’t have millions, a multimillion-pound television contract to fall back on. You know, you’ve got none of that. So, you, you literally are waiting for pennies to drop from the sky. And, um, thankfully some have already, but I’d be amazed if there are clubs that, by the end of this that haven’t making, making the most of those a furlough possibilities. Now, from what I’ve read today, what I’ve seen from, um, EFL today. I don’t think we’ll be seeing football before June this year at the earliest, because players had been told um, or clubs have been told, not to consider training until the middle of May. So, I think we’re still a long way off. And for a lot of football clubs who might’ve had multiple home games between now and the end of the season on, on which they relied massively upon the revenue, uh, from the gate receipts, that’s a massive problem. So, having come up with these schemes, what football needs to do is now make sure that money physically gets to these people. Um, because they still have outgoings. They’ve still got to pay their non-playing staff as well as their, their playing staff. And come to the decisions which are right for them, for their own football clubs and not worrying what everyone else is doing.

Rob Hanna: [00:15:25] Yeah. No, well said. Well said. You’ve touched on it there, and if people that don’t know, you are a Sunderland fan, and it’d be great just to sort of tell us a bit more about your, your NED positions. I know you were with Oxford United, and now sort of currently Sunderland FC and what, and what that sort of involves?

David Jones: [00:15:39] Yeah, um. I didn’t know too much about, sort of life as a NED, before the Oxford United role came along. I was introduced to a guy who became the owner of the club, who, his background was private equity and himself, he does, and did sit on a lot of other boards advising them on, on how they should be conducting their business. And actually, it opened up my eyes and make me realize the possibilities out there and the impact that I could have. I was, I was quite surprised at how quickly, I was able to make a positive impact at Oxford United. Not just with the background of contacts and the network that I have within football, but also so the, the communication skills, which is a pretty fundamental aspect of it. And of any successful business, I would say. I don’t think my skills are, are purely suited for football. You know, I think they could be used across many different businesses and that’s something I’ve learnt in terms of leadership as well, and how you approach different situations. Um, the ability to speak to people is, is something that I’ve probably taken for granted, but it’s, but it’s actually quite an important skill within business.

[Laughter]

So, so I was able to use that in Oxford in a positive way and got quite heavily involved in recruitment, I guess particularly. I also recruited, I was involved there, led the recruitment process for two different managers while I was at the club. And, uh, I left, it was quite natural time for me to leave because the club was taken over by a Thai consortium. Who had their own ideas. And, um, I wasn’t really interested in waiting around to hear what they were in truth, because my role at Sky was changing at that time, and I was taking on a bit more responsibility with the Super Sunday and the Monday Night Football strands. Um, and then the connection with Sunderland, not just the fact that I’m a fan there, but the guys that run it, and some people would have seen the Netflix documentary, the guys in charge there are Oxford fans. Um, so they knew of me. They knew of my work at Oxford from my time there, and it was just a case of the right time for me to go in. Um. I haven’t been able to have the impact that I would have liked so far, but it’s been a, a rapidly changing, fluid situation in terms of the ownership because the fans have asked the current owner Stewart Donald that he, that he sign a new owner for the club and that process is sort of still ongoing. So, anything that I’d hoped to achieve, had to be sort of put on hold. Um, I mean, wait and see how that situations resolved really. And, and this, this whole, um, pandemic as well. Before we can start thinking about how we move forward again. 

Rob Hanna: [00:18:19] Yeah. No, absolutely. And listen, the other point I was going to ask about is, you know, women’s sports and football. It’s very much on the rise, which is great. What more do you think needs to be done to getting that into more prime-time Sky Sports TV? 

David Jones: [00:18:33] Well, I think there is a competitive tender process, which we were certainly involved in the bidding for and will be in future years. I mean, I can’t speak for my bosses. I think we’d all like to see some of it on Sky, but you know, they’re the guys that are controlling the purse strings. Uh, I think it is, you know, its popularity is growing and it’s there for all to see. Uh, what, what more needs to be done? Well, I think it would be great if the England team could win a World Cup or a major tournament.

[Laughter]

And I think, that would, that would, um, you know, put it on the map even more. And if it starts being, even more successful, I suppose we need to talk about it more as much as anything. With more investment in it, it becomes more professional and becomes more attractive as a result. 

Rob Hanna: [00:19:16] Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, this is a legal podcast, so I was going to ask you if you could change or include one law in football that you think is missing, what would it be? 

David Jones: [00:19:26] I would like to see, um, maybe in stadia I know we’re asking a lot of officials and ability to communicate at the moment, but. If, if we could have sort of clocks on view in the stadia that the referees were acting on, I think that would be quite interesting.

So even in the first half, everybody’s aware that one minute has been generated because of X , Y, or Z and at the end of the games, rather than, you know, sometimes it feels like they’re just picking a number from thin air. Um, we can see that buildup of time as the second half goes on. Perhaps every time there’s been a substitution or every time there’s been a prolonged goal celebration or an injury delay, you see the clock going longer and longer. I think that would that would be an interesting thing. 

Rob Hanna: [00:20:11] Yeah! 

David Jones: [00:20:11] It would be more entertaining, certainly for those fans that they’re actually at the games. 

Rob Hanna: [00:20:15] Yeah. So, in terms of some short, sharp questions, then you can’t, you can’t sort of dance around who’s your favorite pundit to work with? 

David Jones: [00:20:24] Urm, I’ll never give you a straight answer on that question.

Rob Hanna: [00:20:28] [Laughter] Ok. 

David Jones: [00:20:28] I think they’re all brilliant. 

Rob Hanna: [00:20:30] Very fair answer. Fair enough. Urm, I think you alluded to earlier, as I mentioned, I’m a Liverpool fan, so you know, in terms of Liverpool being announced champions, you know, it’s been 30 years and per, do you think there’s quite a long wait still ahead then? And do you see the season following it’s, course it’s just the case of time, or do you think things may have to be adjusted?

David Jones: [00:20:49] My hunch is still very much that everybody, stakeholders, um, clubs, players, managers are desperate to get this season completed. 

Rob Hanna: [00:20:58] Yeah. 

David Jones: [00:20:59] Now the EFL have sort of said that that would take them 56 days, they think. From start to finish, including playoffs, which takes us, if it’s going to be a June start, probably into August, realistically. So, you know, everything is going to have to get shoved back. I can’t see a situation now where we are starting next season. As it’s supposed to early in August, having completed this season. You know, I think something has got to change and will get pushed back. You know, if I was a betting man, I’d say we’ll be playing behind closed doors football for a considerable time before we see fans back in the stadium as well. 

Rob Hanna: [00:21:32] Yeah, and I joked at the start about VAR, but there is an emergence of tech coming into every sector, sport, business, at the moment. Do you think there’s other technology that could be included into football that is missing or you think we may see in the future, or not?

David Jones: [00:21:49] My hunch on that is that we kind of have to get this bit of technology right before we even consider any other technology. And I still think we are some way off from doing that. If you think about how every different league and. And, uh, every different governing body have their own ideas about how it should be implemented. Then, you know, until we’re all on the same page on that, we can’t consider anything else. But football is like anything, it’s, you know, can’t stand still. It has to move forward. Um, so I would, you know, I’d imagine that, yeah, there will be more technology around the corner, but it’s anybody’s guess what that will actually look like at this stage.

Rob Hanna: [00:22:21] Yeah, and it’s worth pointing out. You’re a, you’re a big advocate of LinkedIn and we were very kindly connected through that platform. And thanks very much for taking part. And I know you were a top voice for 2019 on LinkedIn as well, but for people perhaps not so familiar with the platform, do you want to sort of tell people about that and sort of, you know, what you, what you get up to on there?

David Jones: [00:22:41] Yeah, I mean, to me it’s a very different place to Twitter and Instagram, it’s, it’s somewhere where I’m expecting to be dealing with serious people generally who treat my input on there at face value and without sort of prejudice. And, uh, I’m not, I’m not approaching it from really a football perspective, but what I did, I always had a long-standing sort of, um, interest in it, I suppose as a platform. And I suppose more and more as people have found me on there, I’ve been asked lots of questions. So, uh, lots of students who ask my advice on, on the route that they should take. Um, people who are starting out as journalists, wondering how they get to just sort of into a role that perhaps I have or have had down the years. And rather than sort of go around everybody and answer individually, because I do get a lot of these same questions that come through, I decided to sort of post a few vlogs on there. Um. And previously, if you post about the kind of processes that I go through, something, some of the things we’ve talked about here, Robert, and, you know, just sort of collate them in, in, in one sort of safe place if you like. And, and I suppose I was amazed with some of the early posts, I’m going back to last year, that were getting some 2 million views on there. I’m always a bit skeptical of numbers on the social media platforms. I think sometimes you can sort of brush over something and it counts as a view, but still there was a lot of eyes going onto it. Um, so I thought it does have a value. Uh, they did grant me one of their sort of top voices, which was, which was nice and not quite sure what it means, but, um, they’ve also the granted me live status and I’m still really working that out because, um, unless you are very clear, I think, or very regular in your sort of time slot, almost like a TV show, I think it’s very hard to generate numbers to your live platform. So, I’m not sure whether that has got legs for me or not. I’ll, I’ll still be experimenting with it a little bit. Um, but yeah, I’ve found it a really good place and I’ve met some interesting people through it and I’ve actually done some good connections and networking as well, so I’ve got work out of it, you know, because I also do some work as an event host. Um, and some interesting contacts have come through LinkedIn. 

Rob Hanna: [00:24:54] Great. Great. And we sort of joked about it again earlier as well, but as we look to, to wrap up, do you think England could ever win a world cup?

David Jones: [00:25:01] I don’t see why not really. Um, you know, if you, if you’re being really selfish from a football perspective, I think the idea that we were, the Euros has been postponed for 12 months, is not a bad thing at all. Because if you think about how young our squad is right now under Gareth Southgate, and, and how much better, hopefully it will be with another years, years maturity. I think that’s really quite exciting because you get players like Harry Kane and Sterling really at their peak at that point. Um, you get another year to, to bed down at offense, essential pair, of Harry McGuire again, who’s, who is gonna have had another year at Manchester United and find him a, a really reliable partner whoever that is going to be. I think there’s something to be sorted out with the Goal Keepers. I don’t think any of us were quite sure going into this one who was going to be the number one choice as a Goalkeeper. Uh, you’ve got, for me, one of the best footballers in the Premier League, Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will be again blossoming in, in a further year down the line and all these exciting talents at the top of the pitch as well, the likes of Jadon Sancho, uh, Marcus Rashford. Urm, plenty of others I can’t think of off the top of my head. Well, the likes of Jack Grealish and Maddison, I guess. Where will they be in 12 months’ time? Urm, as footballers. So, I think, you know, 12 months from now, the Euros is a realistic target. And then if Qatar is still happening in 2022 then we’d go into that with a bit of momentum.

Rob Hanna: [00:26:27] Yeah, well, fingers crossed, I’m an eternal optimist. And I’m confident that I will, uh, I’ll be there. I was actually out, unfortunately in, in Japan for the Rugby World Cup, just gone. And it was such a shame, the chaps did so well to get to that final, but it would be great to see, uh, England win it in my lifetime. So, I’ve heard so many great things about 66. But it would be nice to live through it. So, I’m staying as an eternal optimist. 

David Jones: [00:26:49] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m, I’m probably at the same and the closest thing we get to these tournaments, the more excited I tend to get. 

Rob Hanna: [00:26:55] Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, David, from, all of us on the Legally Speaking Podcast, we really do appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to, to sort of partake. We will also share the links with this episode with regards to, I know you’re going to be setting up a Just Giving page as well, which the Legally Speaking Podcast will be contributing towards for all the fabulous work that the NHS are doing during this tough time, but is there, is there anything else you’d just like to say on that whilst you’ve got the opportunity to?

David Jones: [00:27:25] No, that’s, that’s brilliant, Robert. Thank you. And, um, yeah, you know, just to add to that. The Q&A stuff that I’ve been doing, um, over LinkedIn, I think there is something, there is potential around it in terms of if you’re speaking to maybe half a dozen different people from, from one business over Zoom and they all have a chance to put their questions to you. I think it would be not just interesting for them, but also quite a nice team building experience at a time when people are working from home, perhaps struggling for motivation and inspiration. I think I can maybe help with that. 

Rob Hanna: [00:27:56] Yeah. No, most definitely. Well, David, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks ever so much. Once again, we look forward to seeing you on our screens when we are back live in the hope that the football seasons resume. Thanks very much. 

David Jones: [00:28:07] Thank you Robert. Thanks for having me.