Mother-and-daughter Nathalie and Eve Luckett share more than a love of the beautiful game.
If you are one of those people who worries about “kids today” and thinks we are rearing a generation of phone-obsessed, monosyllabic social misfits with ADHD, I have some good news for you, writes Paul Rouse. All is not lost.
Meet Eve Luckett.
Eve, from Bentley Heath, is not only bright, personable and delightful company, but a 19-year-old with a focus. Literally, as her passion – and chosen career path – is photography. Sports photography to be precise. And more to the point, rather than just dreaming about it, she is well on her way to achieving her goals: just into her second year studying for a BA in photography at Coventry University, she is already listed by stock-photo library giants Getty Images and has become a familiar face at Villa Park, where as part of her course work she has been invited to ‘shadow’ accredited photographers at several first-team games, enabling her to add to her growing portfolio.
Away from the glamorous side of Premier League football, however (including the perfectly-understandable selfies with Tyrone Mings), it is Eve’s work with Ability Counts, Aston Villa’s disability football project, which tells you all you need to know about her, honing her skills as she captures the delight of participants from the age of six through to adulthood who have been given the opportunity to play the game they love, no matter what disability they may have.
“To be honest, I wasn’t that great at playing anything myself,” admits Eve, “but football is in the blood, and I’ve always loved watching all kinds of sport. I guess it was a case of ‘she who can does, she who cannot…’
The love of photography hit me when I was about thirteen, picking up an old BlackBerry at home and finding I had a good eye for subject matter and composition.
I was encouraged by a great teacher, Mr Fletcher at Arden Academy in Knowle, and took Photography as one of my ‘A’ Levels before applying to study it at uni.
“And maybe it’s in the genes. Mum is originally from Liverpool, and her uncle John worked alongside Linda Eastman, as she was before she married Paul McCartney, photographing The Beatles back in the late Sixties. He had some great stories to tell from those days. I appreciate photography is a tough business to break into, and
as I approach the end of my course, I’ll be applying for jobs in the media, with agencies, whatever it takes. Maybe in a few years’ time, I’ll have my own stories to tell.”
Make a note of the name.
Influence
It’s not all about Eve, however. Her mum Nathalie is a force of nature in her own right, and a positive influence on her Mini-Me daughter. Self-confessed Liverpool FC ‘nut,’ Nathalie left Merseyside back in the Eighties to work in Birmingham, and was a drama producer for the BBC at the fondly-remembered Pebble Mill Studios before taking an extended career break when she married Ian (a musician) and had daughters Eve and Lily (now 16, and a future contender for being the youngest-ever Booker prize winner. But that’s a story for another day…)
Coming back into the workplace, Nathalie has set up a new project which offers children and young people the opportunity to produce podcasts and other broadcast media, focused around local, national and international sports events.
“The idea is a relatively simple one,” explains Nathalie. “Telling stories about grassroots passion and the true love of sports, as told by the fans. It’s early days, and whilst much of my work to date has been in and around the West Midlands, the project will be open to schools, colleges, clubs and groups throughout the UK as it grows.”
This year has seen Nathalie running summer camps at Warwick School, and over the autumn months, she is offering training sessions for after-school clubs in the area. Input is sought from young fans at all levels of sport, “from going along to your local cricket or rugby club to attending a top-flight football match or international swimming gala. It might even just be something you love watching on TV. We’ve had lots of contributions on the Commonwealth Games and the Lionesses this summer, and with the World Cup in Qatar coming up, there are endless possibilities.
“Sport itself is often recognised as a great way of keeping kids off the streets,” she argues, “so why not also offer them something they can enjoy whether or not they actually take part? Young people’s viewpoints inject life into events because they can invest their exuberance, honesty and flair into the stories, making them attractive to audiences. Their insight is invaluable, as they are looking at sport through their eyes, devoid of the received wisdom and – let’s be honest – some of the clichés associated with mainstream media. They are truly a breath of fresh air.”
Nathalie offers guidance and tuition on style, content and technical issues. The stories can then be edited and uploaded to websites and social media accounts, and even made accessible to a range
of broadcasters who might want to use the content on their own platforms for wider reach.
“We want to hear from any young people with a love of sport, whether it’s simply because they have something they want to say, or have a dream of a future career in the media,” says Nathalie. “There’s that old joke about somebody ‘having a good face for radio.’ But it has an element of truth in it. Not everybody can be, or even wants to be a star. If we can be the first stepping-stone to somebody becoming a sports commentator or analyst, that’s fantastic. But even if not, it’s fun, and we’re getting kids to interact. Podcasting is a great medium for teaching you to listen. It’s not just about the sound of your own voice. You need to connect with your audience.”
Nathalie and Eve have been doing their own connecting of late, thanks to their shared passion, and in between their busy schedules, have managed to grab some valuable mother-and-daughter time with “semi-working” visits to the FA Cup Final (a win for Liverpool of course) and Wimbledon (“an amazing day out I’d recommend to anybody, even if they’re not, particularly a tennis fan”) enthuses Nathalie.
For anybody looking for encouragement in starting up a second career, she is certainly proof that life, like a football match, can be a game of two halves…
Do you have a sports-related story to tell?
Contact Nathalie at nathalie.media13@gmail.com