One thing I always try to do with these blogs is talk to you, yeah you who's sat there flicking through this intro, and make it as much like a conversation as possible.
That's because why would you want to read something that doesn't feel like it reaches out and grabs you, and makes you feel as though you've got some sort of connection with the person who's spent many the late night putting it all together.
There's another reason to that style though as well, if you've ever got to know me properly you know I can sit there and talk about sport all day, and as proven by when I write these blogs at times, also all night.
Now I created an about me page on this website that explains briefly about my route into sport and sports journalism and how I've got to where I am today, but I feel as though a more focused bit on it works so much better.
So here's a brief/not so brief guided tour of my life so far and my route into sports journalism, someone's just clearly copied the title of this blog piece I know I know, but anyways...
I was born on November 12, 2001, three months premature, and it set the tone from day one really that I was always going to be lacking height!
Mum was working in the bank and dad was a butcher, but they both decided they didn't want me to have a peaceful single child childhood, so they threw in my sister for good measure almost three years later just to make things slightly more interesting, hi sis!
I was like any other child growing up, I wanted to try and play every sport possible, apart from swimming.
Many swimming lessons throughout primary and secondary school were spent in the shallow end of the pool, trying to make sure I didn't swallow enough water in between widths so that I could make it to my next lesson that day.
Running was also something I was never good at believe it or not.
I would say that during my time at secondary school that a snail had more natural pace than me, but that might be an insult to the snail!
Football was always more up my street, scoring goals up front before that lack of pace finally caught up with me, and I swiftly made the move to defence where I never proceeded to score a goal ever again, training goals aren't counted are they?
Rugby league wasn't the worst either, and neither was rugby union, in cricket I would compare myself to the modern day Haseeb Hameed, plenty of good defensive shots but I couldn't hit sixes for toffee, and had more blocks than a Lego set.
So the bottom line is I was never good at any of those sports to make it anywhere, so it left me with a question on my mind, what do I do now?
Academically, I had always been good and enjoyed English, I once wrote a descriptive piece of writing about how caves came to life once and my mother claims to this day that the piece was an early sign that I was cut out for this writing business, if only everyday we could bring random objects to life in our writing, I've spent the last 30 minutes writing this piece hoping the laptop might utter a word of reassurance that what I'm writing is good.
I also did a match report once on one of my under 10's football game, that's if my memory still serves me right, it's almost 10 years ago now so one or two years either way isn't really an issue.
Anyways, it seemed as though writing, or even journalism for that matter was always lying around somewhere, waiting for me to pick it up and take it seriously at some point, exactly as I'm doing now.
That was it though really, out of the blue my idea of "why don't I write about sport?", was born.
Now obviously at the time I didn't realise that there was an actual term for doing that, something you might know as sports journalism.
My first role came out my hometown's rugby league club whilst I was still playing, thanks to a guy who lived next to my grandmother lived called Paul Roskell.
I would go down and watch their home games on a Saturday, and write a match report up for the programme for the next game, and also have it put on Facebook so that everyone could see.
Alongside all of this I spent numerous summers in the offices at Barrow, at a newspaper company which was once formerly known as The North West Evening Mail, now just The Mail.
From this I widened my skills, and gained experience first hand from people who got paid to do this as their job, I still thank those people today, because without them I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.
Just to rewind a little on this part of the story, my contact with the paper came when my mum mentioned to my P.E teacher, Steven Olliver, about me doing the match reports, and he knew the man who was editor of the sports desk at the time, Matt Davies, and sent me his contact details over.
Over my time at the offices I worked alongside him, Paul Turner, Marc Bazeley, Matt Wright, and the brilliant Paddy McAteer, and each and everyone of them taught me different skills about the world of journalism to help me build up my confidence, and ability to be able to carry out the job.
I was still left with a difficult decision after I got my GCSE's, nothing to be over excited about results wise may I add, do I go and get an apprenticeship now or do I sit my A-Levels?
A hands on approach was something I never envisioned myself doing, I just didn't see myself being an electrician or a plumber what can I say?
I knew where my skills lied, and for now they were in a classroom still, so I took up my A-Levels at Millom Sixth Form, and got ready for another two years of hard work.
The reality was that at some point I had to make a decision on my future, it was between earning while I was still learning or moving to university, it was that simple really, mum had already ruled out a job in the butchers alongside my dad a long long time ago, sorry dad, maybe sometime in the future eh?
I'm taking a chance there that he's managed to somehow get this on his phone to read, we all know how difficult technology can be to work don't we?
It's at this point in my life that I realised that I could actually give this sports journalism thing a real good go, and my heart was always set on going to university and getting a degree in it if I'm honest.
At the same time I had just taken up rugby league reffing and was also enjoying that, little did I know I would progress as much as I have done in that and taken it so far to this day.
But we started shopping for which university suited me the best, and seemed to suit me the best.
UCFB was first up on my list, and it really did capture my eye from the first moment that I laid eyes on it.
However, I knew deep down after the second university visit that I went on which university was going to be for me.
I missed the actual tour at UCLAN that day for the sports journalism course because I was still in sixth form, studying A-Level Geography to be exact.
A late three hour round trip was on the cards, but it ended up being worth it, and I walked away from the meeting with Steve Canavan and Gerrie Byrne that day knowing where my future lied.
There was still one more planned trip to Leeds university, but on the way to that dad's car decided it wasn't going to work properly and restrict itself to only going 30mph tops, wouldn't be ideal on the motorway would it?
That for me though was like fate didn't want me to go there, and UCLAN went down on my list as 1st choice.
This was eventually met with an unconditional offer which I always knew I was going to accept, but I backed it up with some half decent A-Level results, helped by this new pandemic sweeping the globe at the time called coronavirus, wait a minute...
My 1st year of university didn't have much to report on, I spent it sat at home in my room for most of it joining teams meeting after teams meeting, and occasionally grabbing the odd train to come into class every now and again.
The main thing is that I got through it and passed, because the 2nd year was always going to be an important one.
I spent the first one getting used to my course, and realising that I did really enjoy doing this, but the more free time I had on my hands allowed me to start a fitness journey at the start of 2021, where over the next 12 months I would lose four stone through exercising more and more.
Year 2 soon came around anyways, but this time with a twist.
After almost 20 years of living at home on a full-time basis, I signed a 10 month contract with a UCLAN accommodation provider, and moved in to halls of residence, with teaching returning back to normal at this point.
I was ready, I was prepared, and I was all set to get my head down and work hard through this next year with no distractions or anything like that, welllllll...
Despite the finer details of how we met yet to be published, in true Sue Gray report fashion of course, a certain someone ended up being the distraction that I must have been missing throughout that first year, because everything just magically got better.
So that brings you up to the present day, I hope you enjoyed a whistle stop tour of my life and my route into sports journalism, and I hope you found it interesting and enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it all together.
I'll be carrying on my match day reporting with Fylde rugby union and the brilliant Allan Foster for the rest of their season alongside my second semester at university.
Rugby league starts again soon and I'll be back out refereeing, but the most important thing to me is that I'm living out the perfect dream at the minute, making great friends along the way while doing the things I love, and long may that continue.
Thanks for reading as always everyone, unfortunately I have to head off and brush up on my shorthand, I promise to those who know what my handwriting looks like that it's way more eligible than that, but don't worry I'll see you in the next blog piece, won't I?
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