QUALITIES

Most editors or potential employers look for three key attributes in potential sportswriters:

• Good knowledge and enthusiasm for the sport.
• A decent level of literacy, although degree level English is not required!
• The right personality - drive, determination and the ability to get on with people.

If you do not think you qualify on all three counts, journalism may not be for you. A tick against all three boxes, however, is no guarantee that you will make it as a sportswriter.

REWARDS

Football may be a multi-million pound industry, with the top players earning more in a week than most people do in a year, but sportswriting is not usually so well rewarded. A starting salary for a junior reporter on a local paper may be around £10,000, while experienced reporters outside the nationals may not earn more than £25,000 to £30,000.

Only a tiny percentage of sportswriters earn the sort of executive salaries that could be made in other areas of the media, and job security is not always high - a change of editor often means a change of staff, like a new manager often means a shake up of playing staff in a football club.

The biggest rewards are often in terms of the lifestyle, with the luckiest writers travelling the world reporting on the biggest games and interviewing superstar footballers, with their opinions read by millions.

ROUTES INTO SPORTSWRITING

There are four main routes into football journalism:

• Local papers / agencies. The traditional route, still favoured by many editors, is for reporters to cut their teeth on a local paper or news agency. Starting at a young age, often after GCSE or A levels, junior reporters are expected to learn their trade with a thorough apprenticeship that usually includes day- or block-release to study for National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) qualifications.

• University Journalism courses. These can be degree level (usually three years) or postgraduate (1 year) crammers, at universities that offer journalism courses, often NCTJ-accredited. Ten years or so there were only a handful around the country - now that number has increased.

• Independent intensive courses. The NCTJ and private institutions offer short and intensive courses (16-20 weeks) in journalism. They can be quite expensive.

• Pester Power. Sports-related magazines or websites may take on a limited number of junior staff, often starting out with menial tasks, making tea or data input, with the promise of giving some journalism training and learning 'on the job'. There is no structured career path or recognized qualifications, but for the really determined this can be another route into a successful sportswriting job.

There is no age limit, in theory, and there are plenty of examples of people who switch careers or change jobs to go into sportswriting. But as a basic rule of thumb, the later in life you start, the harder it will be.

Freelance writing is not usually recommended to anyone without some solid experience in journalism. The life of a freelance can be rewarding when work is plentiful, but selling stories and features to editors is an art in itself. A very good book on this subject has been written by Jeremy Butler and is an informative read for anyone interested in football journalism. Called 'Writing Sports Stories That Sell,' it is available from How To Books (www.howtobooks.co.uk).