UWP Members Blog#1: A love of languages, Pride and NUFC

In our first members blog for United With Pride, we're sharing the experiences of Paul one the members of our group. He's a lifelong NUFC fan, who's work takes him to way beyond the boundaries of our great city.

Well this week has been some experience. I hadn’t been to St. James’ Park since 2009 when I saw the most miserable 0-0 draw against Portsmouth and we all know what else happened that season. This week was a bit different, it brought me back to some of the good old times with the club. I remember watching that game in the Champions League against Barcelona from the Gallowgate end, a couple of FA Cup finals and more.

I’ve known of United with Pride for many years but because of work and a certain pandemic, was never able to get back to watch a match. Nevertheless, I walked into Bobby’s across the road from my hotel on Tuesday night and was welcomed with open arms by everyone involved in the group. Before the game we were able to go through our predictions, get to know one another and then we made that walk up to St. James’ full of expectation. You don’t need a match report but I can tell you the celebrations afterwards left me with sore legs for days from too much dancing. Finally meeting the group was absolutely fantastic and I also attended the AGM which was held on Sunday morning. I had family commitments which meant I couldn’t watch the game against Fulham but United with Pride is like another family in itself. This is a truly diverse and wonderful group and you can see we are all united by one thing and that’s our love for Newcastle and I can’t wait to see where this journey the club is on will take us, maybe Europe again?

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at clubs when they want to reach an international audience? Maybe you’ve also wondered what new players or managers do if they don’t speak the local language à la Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds.

If you did then you’ve come to the right place. Not only am I a United with Pride member, I’m a professional translator and have worked with some of the big names across Europe as well as that football collective also known as FIFA.

So, let’s start with the players, what do they do when they move to a new country? Well they have two options: they can take either classes (we all know they have the money and time away from the pitch), or they do a Gareth Bale in Madrid, refuse to learn the local language and hire someone like me to work with them day in day out from the training ground to the dressing room. This also applies to managers, however, when you’re a manager you’re always going to be facing the local press so learning the local language is a good idea (well, I think it’s a good idea whenever you move to a new country no matter what you’re doing). Players can sometimes get away with it, especially if they’re on a short-term loan.

And the clubs? Well, we might not notice it so much over here in the UK but in many other countries I’ve worked most clubs will put out a lot of content in their local language as well as English and others. Inter Milan, for example, have a huge language content team covering Italian, English, Chinese and more. I’m sure some of you have also seen that NUFC have now got an official Twitter account in Arabic.

What does this mean then for people like me who work with these clubs? The first thing that might surprise you is that we’re not very loyal to the clubs we work for (unlike my support for NUFC). I might be translating content for different clubs in the same league, even arch-rivals on the same day. Over the Christmas period there was one day I was translating and subtitling videos for three of Italy’s biggest clubs with a press release for a Bundesliga team thrown in the mix at the same time. In all honesty, it’s what makes the job fun–that and getting a heads up about certain things in advance of the public (although we’re made to sign NDA's so I can’t tell you anything before any announcement).

Another interesting facet of the job is that you get to experience football on a continental basis, which has been nice whilst waiting for Newcastle to get back to European competition. This also includes the development of anti-discrimination campaigns, something which is lacking across a lot of Europe. Germany doesn’t do too badly, Borussia Dortmund have an LGBTQIA+ supporters group with the Rainbow Borussen and some other teams do as well but Spain and Italy, in particular, are still trying to get a proper hold of racism (not that we aren’t completely). This is why groups like United with Pride are so important in leading the way. By being a shining light in this country, along with others, we can show others across the continent that it’s possible to be LGBTQIA+ and involved in football, either as a fan or professionally.