Jon Attenborough has chronicled his journey visiting all 42 Scottish football league clubs with his assistance dog, in the soon-to-be-released “Following Sam.”
In the latest episode of The Level Playing Field Podcast, Jon shares the logistics, highlights, and accessibility challenges of his travels, as well as the vital role Sam plays in his match day experience.
We also discuss how clubs and fans can better support disabled supporters and touch on Jon’s nomination for the Football Content Awards, in the Equality Diversity Inclusion (Individual) category. Level Playing Field is also a finalist in the awards, in the in the Equality Diversity Inclusion (Organisation) category. Supporters can vote and find out more, here, on the awards website.
The podcast episode can be found here, or via your chosen podcast platform and the full transcript is available below.
Find out more about “Following Sam” and preorder the book here.
Liam: Welcome to the Level Playing Field podcast. My name is Liam Bird and I hope you are all well. We had taken the summer off, but now we’re back and today I’m speaking to Jon Attenborough, a football fan and soon to be author, of following Sam, a book about his journey, attending matches at all 42 Scottish Football League clubs with his assistants, dog Sam. But before we get into that interview, exciting news from Level Playing Field. We have been nominated in the upcoming football content awards in the equality, diversity and inclusion award category under organisations. There is a link in this episode description for you to go vote for Level Playing Field if you would be so kind. Thats enough of the Shamless plugs. Let’s get back to this episode.
In this episode, Jon shares the incredible logistics behind his challenge, the highlights of his travels and the accessible barriers he faced along the way. We also dive into how vital Sam is to Jon’s matchday experience, the attitudes of fellow fans and the progress made along with the gaps that remain in Scottish football regarding accessibility. Jon speaks passionately about what football means to him, offering advice for fans and clubs on how to interact with disabled supporters. Plus, we touch on John’s recent nomination for the Football Content Awards and discuss how digital and matchday content can be made more inclusive for disabled fans. I like to think that John’s journey across Scottish football clubs is not just about football, it’s about creating a legacy of inclusion and better access for future generations of disabled supporters.
So, with all that in mind, let’s crack on with this episode with myself and Jon. How are you doing? Thank you for joining me.
Jon: Thank you for having me on, Liam. I’m doing very well, thank you. How are you?
Liam: Yeah, I’m doing all right. We’ve already kind of done this bit, so it’s always weird when you kind of do it again.
So, Jon, so some people might be aware of you, some people might not. But could you share a bit about yourself? For those who might not know who you are, tell us your story.
Jon: Yeah, so, I’m Jon, been visually impaired since birth and I’m a massive football fan and, I’ve been travelling to games all across Scotland and some games down south as well, with my guide dog Sam, and we’ve actually just recently completed visiting all the 42 SPFL grounds. It’s been. I’m just a big football fan who loves going to football games and I’m really thankful that I’ve been able to experience it at all different levels across the UK.
Liam: You spoke about the 42 Scotland football, league teams there and you’ve starting to write a book about it as well called, following Sam, obviously. Sam, your assistance dog slash guide dog. And it’s about, as you said, your experiences of attending games of football. What were the challenges of deciding, you know, what, I’m gonna do this, and also, where did it come from? When did you go, I’ve done one ground, I’m gonna keep going, I’m gonna go do the next one.
Jon: I actually just kind of stemmed from my love of football and I kind of really started going to games like pretty much every single week from the end of the first lot really, when stadiums opened back up again after Covid. And basically I’m a Dundee United fan, so we initially started just going to Dundee United home games and then I started going to some of the away matches with the team as well and following the team away. It was really interesting, like kind of exploring the accessibility of the different grounds. And a lot of the grounds up here in Scotland actually offer the audio, descriptive commentary as well. So it was good getting that sort of experience. And I thought, I just thought to myself, I wonder if, I wonder what it’s like even in some of the lower league grounds. So we started trying to see if we could actually visit all the 42 SPFL grounds which cover from the premiership down to League Two. Been doing that over the past, maybe taking us about two and a half years to do the 42, and just completed it there in September.
Liam: Logistically, it must have been a nightmare. So to give some context to some people who might not know what the scottish footballing landscape is, I mean, Ross county is probably the most northerly professional football club. The closest, like professional league rival is Aberdeen. That’s like 159 miles away. So did you keep track of how many miles you’ve done as well as. And also did you do public transport as well?
Jon: So I actually, quite recently, as part of the research for the book that I’ve been writing, tried to calculate roughly how many miles we covered over the course of the sort of two and a half years it took us. And it actually worked out, about just over 6000 miles. We travelled, like there and back to across the country and like you said, to some of the really, really far north places like Ross county and down to the really sort of the corners of the country down in Stranraw and places like that. and yeah, we did it all by public transport as well, which has its own issues with accessibility. And, you know, just this past year that we’ve been doing, it has been a lot of, you know, train cancellations and train strikes as well, which kind of through the occasional spanner in the works. But for me, it’s all been, that’s all been part of the journey as well. And I think it’s given me quite a unique perspective on, not only some of the challenges in the grounds themselves, but also actually getting to the grounds via public transport, which a lot of disabled fans reliably, 100%.
Liam: It’s one of the biggest barriers for anyone attending live sport is actually getting, obviously, from home to the stadium and your matchday starts, in my opinion, the moment you do leave your house. How did your love of football come about then? Because you spoke about growing up being born with sight loss. Who was it that took you to your first football game? Also, what was it like when you first attended, regarding the accessible features that might have been or might not have been available to you to attend?
Jon: My love of football started when I was really, really young. It was always on the tv. My younger brother and my dads were, they were big football fans, so there was always football on the telly. If it was like, Scottish Premiership games, ah, Scotland games, Premier League games, and we actually, my very first football match that I went to was with my younger brother and my dad and it was a preseason friendly game, but I was to see Dundee United versus Barcelona and it was actually Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona team. So there was like Lionel Messi, Thierry Henri, Ronaldinho and, you know, all these players that just grew up, seeing on the telly, you know, like in Champions League nights and stuff, it was just unreal to see them there in a place like Dundee, you know. And, what actually made me a proper Dundee United fan was that I remember that game so vividly that, Prince Bobbin actually scored the first goal within like the first five minutes of the game. We eventually lost the game five one, but just seeing the whole stadium erupt, we get in the first goal against such a team. That went on to be a really iconic Barcelona side as well. that just kind of really sparked my interest in going to live games. And as you said, the accessibility wasn’t as good as it is now, especially back then in the sort of mid to late, sort of early two thousands. so like the things like the audio, descriptive commentary, they didn’t really, they didn’t have that service back then. So I kind of felt like I was missing. I really loved being in the crowd and part of the atmosphere and. But I always felt that it was just a little piece missing. and it was actually only after you’re talking, like maybe 13 years later, or so after the lockdowns ended. That was my really first experience of audio descriptive commentary. and you know what? I just read that alone, just took the matchday experience for me to the next level. It’s just, I always try to explain it to people, how it is to see a match without the commentary and then to listen to it with the commentary over it. And actually, on the SPFL YouTube channel, they did a little video with me and Sam on our last, grounds that we went to visit. And what they did is they actually, because we had the audio descriptive commentary for the forfeit game as well, they blurred out the match and they had, the audio descriptive commentary over the top. So I’d say a really good representation of probably what I see on a match day. and obviously, if you go and watch that video with that little sort of like maybe 62nd clip, watch it without the commentary, turn your volume down and try and watch the blurred out bit without it, then rewinds that part of the video, then listen to it with the commentary, and you can really see the night and day difference that it makes.
Liam: So some people might be confused by commentary, which they might think of like Sky Sports commentary and audio descriptive commentary. Can you explain what the differences are?
Jon: Yeah, of course. So, ah, audio descriptive commentary is, very different to, like listening to Sky Sports or BT Sports or the radio. it’s got that descriptive element to it. So like, if you try and watch, ah, a Premier league game at the weekend, and I would say just shut your eyes for, for like, you know, 30 seconds, then you actually just hear them shouting out random names. You don’t actually know what’s happening. They’re just telling you different players names. And then they start talking about other games that’s happening on that weekend. Whereas the audio descriptive.com j follows the movements of the ball. And they might give, little pieces of nuanced information such as like, oh, Harry Maguire’s got a new hairstyle this week. That’s something that everybody in the stadium can see. But if you’re visually impaired, you might, you just might not pick up on that information. Or he might be, he might be more, the commentators might be more descriptive with, like say, like he takes a shot on goal with his bright orange boots or something like that. So, you know, you get these little nuanced information as well as kind of following the ball the movements of the ball and what the players are doing with the ball as well.
Liam: This is very, very simple question, but what does being able to attend football mean to you?
Jon: Football is my biggest passion in life and it’s what I look forward to every weekend now. I look forward to going to the games I love. Even in the mornings when, when I’m working away, I’ll have talksport on in the background. So football. Football’s like, my biggest passion and it’s the thing I love most. And, it’s always been part of my life since I was. Since I was little, up till now. So, yeah, I just love football and all levels of football as well.
Liam: So going back to your experience of the 42, what were some of the highlights for you and what clubs really stood out in terms of welcoming you and accessibility?
Jon: To be fair, they were all really, really good, but, there was a few clubs that really, sort of went above and beyond Celtics. One that stands out to me, quite vividly because, they were actually one of the clubs that were just the most supportive of our journey overall and trying to achieve visiting all the 42 grounds. So they invited us along to Celtic park for it was the last day of the season for the women’s game and they had the audio, descriptive commentary and they invited us as a guest, into their boardroom, before the game and it was just a really good atmosphere. And then they took, a. They took me and Sam, through to meet Brendan Rogers as well. So we got to have a wee chat with Brendan Rogers for about ten minutes before the start of the game and stuff. And they were really, really supportive. But some of the smaller clubs as well were really, really welcoming to me in Samsung as a small League one club, Dumbarton Football club, just outside Glasgow. They were so welcoming to us. like the disability access officer, she met ourselves when we turned up to the ground and gave us a little tour of the ground, a little bit of orientation, and took, us into the supporters bar and made sure Sam had a bowl of water and things like that. So Dumbarton were really good. Ah, another one was Falkirk as well. they again, they met us at the reception when we arrived for the Falkirk game. And they just said that, they were really supportive of everything that I was trying to do and got us a, sort of comfy seat, up in one of the boxes for the match and stuff. So they were really welcoming as well.
Liam: I can hear some criticism of, well, Jon experienced the luxury side of attending a matchday. Were there any experiences whereabouts it didn’t go to plan and accessibility probably wasn’t great. I’m not looking for you to name clubs, but what I’m trying to get across was how it actually affects you when attending a game if things don’t go right.
Jon: So, yeah, no, you’re right. There was, And I think probably the most challenging part of it was actually visiting some of the clubs in like, say like League two or League one level where they might not have maybe like 75% of the stadium is all still old terracing. and they only have a small sort of seated section that could be particularly challenging, because with the old terrace in the ground is really quite uneven and things like that. And, you know, obviously it would be very difficult for wheelchairs to get. To get around such surfaces and stuff. so, yeah, that was a particularly challenging aspect of it is the grounds that were like really, really old football grounds that still had the terrace in place and very little seating, if any, Seaton. And, like some of the grounds, I, actually found that actually finding the information on the club’s website about where it was in relation to maybe the train station or the bus station could be non existent as well. So you were kind of relying on trying to find that information out yourself by putting into Google maps and things like that. And some of the grounds are not quite in the towns or city centres. They’re really quite far, far out. So things like that, were probably the most challenging part of it.
Liam: so where do you think scottish football has made the biggest success and leaps over the years? And where do you think the biggest gap still remains? Because it’s interesting that you spoke about the actual information that’s available for someone who’s looking to make the journey on their own and haven’t been to the stadium, I think it’s something that’s overlooked that because, it might be an idea of, well, you can find the information, you can go out and find it yourself. Well, that’s not always the case. So I’ll be interested to get your point of view about things have improved, but where there’s still a massive gap.
Jon: Yeah. So I think where things have improved in Scotland, anyway, is on the audio commentary side. I think it’s now 75% of the clubs in the top two divisions, the premiership and the Championship, now offer that as a service. I think there’s only one premiership club that doesn’t have the audio descriptive commentary yet. and even before COVID that number was about 40% of the top two divisions. So they’ve really ramped that, up in terms of offering that as a service, which is really good. And one of the things on that as well is every single club who has introduced the audio descriptive commentary service has. They’ve always had people who use it on a regular basis. So there’s not been a club who’s introduced it. and there’s been. They’ve just not had anybody use it. They’ve always got somebody in the ground who really benefits from it. where I think it could be improved is things like, I would say the big thing is probably communication. So like, especially with the premiership clubs, the communication is pretty consistent because they have obviously like full time members of staff who are responsible for monitoring the social media feeds, monitoring any emails and things that come in. but as you get lower down the leagues, there’s maybe a, like a part time member staff is maybe only in two or three days a week, so you could be waiting a bit longer for a response. And sometimes if you get right down to the lower end of the table, you get, it may just be a volunteer that’s doing that for the club maybe one day a week. and so I’ve found as well, you phone up certain clubs, ah, to maybe m inquire about accessible ticketing, ah, like how you would buy accessible tickets because that information is not always on the website either. And sometimes the phone line will just ring out and you’ll try again later that day and it’ll just ring out again. you have to kind of keep trying. so I would actually say the biggest things they could improve on is communication, having information on the website and probably, ah, a, bit more information as well about how to purchase accessible tickets.
Liam: I’ll be interested to know as well. You’ve kind of spoken about the differences between the clubs in the Premier League and the Championship down to League Two. How have you found the knowledge of accessibility across those leagues? Is it a case that because they’re Premier League, they’ve had accessible training or is it a case that actually, you know what? Some of the Premier League clubs have the same amount of knowledge as a League Two club? It just depends on how the club views disability.
Jon: I think it really does depend on how the club views disability and I think it actually depends on who is in the role of the disability access officer. There’s a lot of the disability access officers in Scotland who are really quite proactive and they’ll kind of do a lot of research themselves, find out what new things they could be doing to improve the accessibility in their club, and they’ll have that sort of communication with the media team so they can do stuff on social media and that as well. Whereas some of the. Some of the disability access officers, particularly in some of the lower league clubs, are, doing on a voluntary basis. So they might just be a volunteer. and there’s often a little bit of inconsistency with people who are maybe just volunteer daos to somebody who’s maybe like, a full time dao in the premiership, for example. and I’ve spoke to, well, I’ve actually spoke to pretty much most of the, ah, disability access officers in Scotland now, and I think it really goes down to how proactive they are in the role and how much they want to improve the accessibility in the club. I mean, I spoke to a few, quite recently and I asked them, you know, is there like, do you get, like, is there like, sort of KPI’s for daos and things? And they’re like, well, no, we just really have to make sure that our disabled supporters are catered to and have what they need to. I says, is there any sort of formal training that you go in for the role? And, they say they’ll send you? Like, I think it’s like a UEFA handbook of sort of guidelines or something that they get, but it’s kind of up to them to go and sort of research the different disabilities and see what’s out there and reach out. So you kind of really. It seems to, from my perspective anyway, seems to kind of see, boil down to who’s in the role and who’s most proactive about engaging.
Liam: Isn’t that a crazy idea that an organisation that, has thousands upon thousands of supporters that come through their door and in that city or town that they’re there, to represent, there’s going to be thousands of thousands of disabled fans. But yet we’re quite comfortable just going, well, if you’ve got an interest in disability, you can take this role. I don’t think in any world we would accept that about anything else. It’s just. It’s just mind blowing to think that someone can be named a disability liaison officer, but have absolutely no interest or want to do a DLO job, but because it’s been given to them, because there might be a ticket office manager or another title, they’re expected to do that job.
Jon: I totally agree. It’s absolutely mind blowing to me. And I think. I think a lot of clubs, because obviously, having a DLO or DAO is, a UEFA requirement. I think a lot of clubs just go, we’ll give it to the ticket office manager, or we’ll get one of the supporters to volunteer to do this role. I’d love to see a bit more formalised, if you know what I mean, and a bit more, even a bit more guidance from UEFA about, or a bit more rules about what you can and can do with the role. I was interested, and I was actually speaking to one of the Daos in Scotland just the other day, and they mentioned to me that, the SLO group that they have in Scotland, they have regular meetups, and it’s formally recognised by the SFA and stuff as the SLO group, but they says they proposed doing the same with the DaO’s in Scotland, having an officially recognised group, for regular me ups to the SFA. The SFA apparently just won’t engage with it for whatever reason, which for me, just seems mad. It seems crazy.
Liam: My job here at Level Playing Field is to work with disabled supporters’ associations and disabled fans in general in England and Wales. I know there are some disabled supporters’ associations in Scotland, but do you think disabled voices are heard enough throughout scottish football?
Jon: It’s funny, I actually mentioned this to, one of the DAOs the other day as well. It would be good to have, like, a Scottish version of Level Playing Field, if you know what I mean, to that consistent engagement across the Scottish clubs. And, especially there’s quite a lot of dsas in Scotland, who are very good at engaging with their own clubs, and some, of them have really, really good relationships between the DSA and the clubs. Be good to have some sort of a scottish version of level playing field, really, to kind of bring clubs, dsas and governing bodies kind of together, so that everybody’s, pardon the pun, on a level playing field, if you know what I mean. It’s like, yeah. And then a bit more consistent with information and guidance on what they should be doing.
Liam: I cringe every time I have to use the charity’s name, level playing field in a conversation. But you never know. Level Playing Field, we might have to creep over the border and, come over and assist. We’ll talk about creeping over the border. I know you’ve attended games the south of the border. How different is that? Is there any difference at all, or is it quite similar?
Jon: for the most part, it’s, ah, pretty similar. I mean, we’ve been to some Premier League games where they’re obviously much bigger stadiums and they have a lot more staff and they have kind of a bit more formal processes in place because they’re obviously supporting a, ah, larger number of people on a match day. Overall, it’d been really good experiences. Ones that stand out to me. We’ve been to Like Wolves was a really good one. We went to a wolves Brentford game last season and it was just such a brilliant experience. And again, the commentators were brilliant, the accessibility stewards were brilliant. Laura, the wolves, Dlo, she was absolutely fantastic with us, for example, went to an Accrington Stanley game as well. And, while they didn’t have the, the audio commentary service at Accrington, I actually found their, their stadium and their new facility. They’ve opened this massive supporters bar that stretches the sort of length of the main stand, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. And they put like, brand new accessible toilets in there and stuff like that as well. So that was a really good experience too. And, yeah, I’ve been to quite a few of the EFL grounds and a couple of the Premier League ones as well, but the experience overall is fairly similar, but just on a much sort of formal level, if you know what I mean. Process driven.
Liam: If you don’t mind, can we talk about Sam a little bit?
Jon: Yeah.
Liam: Due to the pandemic we’ve seen nearly a year plus waiting list for assistance dogs for some people who violently need them. How vital is Sam to your day to day and attending a matchday?
Jon: Oh, it’s sort of crucial really, because, if I didn’t have Sam going to games by myself would be extremely difficult because I would be relying on my long cane. And for me personally, my long cane skills are really not that great. like, even to this day I still hate using my long cane. And the way I always explain it to people is like, if you’ve got the long cane in your hand, you’re having to find all the obstacles in your way yourself. So like, you’re finding if there’s like bins, lamp posts, other people, and even just walking half a mile down the road, you’re absolutely exhausted by the time you get there with all these obstacles you’re navigating around. Now imagine that on a match day where there’s loads of people crisscrossing all over the place. You’ve got busy kiosks, you’ve got, all sorts going on, doing that with a long cane by yourself would be extremely challenging. Whereas when I’ve got Sam, I can just kind of switch off, let him do his thing and act as a guide and just to take me around all these obstacles that, you know, I don’t even know that they’re there, because he’s, I’m just following him and he’s guided me around them. so if it wasn’t for Sam, I would, and I wanted to go to games on a regular basis, I would have to rely on having somebody with me as a sighted guide. And Sam just allows me that freedom to, just, you know, go to a game on the weekend without having to rely on somebody else.
Liam: What’s the number one advice you would give to a venue or fellow supporter and interacting with fans attending a match with a working dog like Sam?
Jon: Yeah, I think the number one thing I would say is, ah, you know, as amazing as it is to see a dog in a stadium, you know, or a country who loves dogs and not, it is not common across all the grounds to see a dog in a stadium. So I would say just let, just as much as it might be difficult, just let the dog do his thing and try not to distract him too much. Just try, not to let them speak to them. But, my advice to clubs, would probably be, you know, have, think about even having an assistance dogs policy in place so that if somebody with an assistance dog did, turn up, that all the match day staff, such as the stewards and the other personnel who work on a match day in the kiosks, and they all kind of know what the protocol is if somebody turned up and then that would put the person with the assistance dog at, ease as well.
Liam: If you can talk to all of football right now and give them one bit of advice on how to improve accessibility for disabled fans, what would it be?
Jon: I would say just one would be really difficult to nail it down to, but, yeah, I would just say engage with the disabled supporters at your club, find out what the biggest barriers are for disabled fans attending games and, ah, then work with your clubs to see how you can mitigate those circumstances. And that’s obviously a long term thing, but even things that you can do in the short term is make sure your website’s up to date. Make sure anything about buying accessible tickets is really easy to find on the ticketing pages. Even the information about how to get to your stadium if you’re driving, if you’re using the train, the bus, make sure all that info that’s something that can be done relatively easy. you know, it’s an easy win for clubs.
Liam: We’re, going to start wrapping up now, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t say that you’ve been nominated for the upcoming Football Content Awards. Congratulations on that, but looking at content digitally and physically, what are some of the barriers that you face? So, I’m thinking more like social media posts and match day programmes. How can clubs make sure that whenever they are creating this content, it’s access act, it’s acts act. It is as accessible. Try and say that with teeth in your mouth as possible.
Jon: I mean, the biggest thing clubs can do, especially for somebody, with sight loss on their social media pages, is get their media teams to use the alt text feature, for example, which is basically just adding a description, of what the images, you’re posting online. And that makes the content that the clubs are putting out there, accessible to visually impaired fans who use a screen reader or, text to speech software. And, use things like if you’re posting videos on the social media page, use closed captions for people who are deaf or hard of hearing as well. that really helps. And that actually, I read something the other day which really, surprised me, around the closed captions thing, as they say that, it’s an essential thing for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but actually 85% of people who watch content on their phones are actually watching it without the audio on it. And I was like, wow, really? It’s that high. So actually, if you put the closed captions on, you’re actually benefiting a wider audience and you’re probably going to get more reach on your content as well.
Liam: Last question. In terms of accessibility, what legacy do you hope that your journey across Scotland and visiting all the football clubs will leave behind for disabled fans, in the future?
Jon: I hope that our journey of visiting the 42 SPFL clubs and documenting it, I hope that it’s kind of brought the conversation around accessibility at football clubs and Scotland to the forefront. People’s minds who are maybe thinking about this at clubs. And I also kind of wanted to, I take little videos at each of the games that we go to. The reason I do that is so that I can show other people who have maybe, perhaps never been to a game what the experience might be like for them if they were to go to a game. So one of the things I would hope with documenting our journey is that it might actually encourage more disabled fans to want to attend games here in Scotland and perhaps even for the first time.
Liam: Perfect. Jon, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it and I hope you and Sam continue to visit many more sporting events and occasions and enjoy as much live sport as possible.
John Attenborough: thank you so much Liam, I really appreciate it. It’s been really good to chat to you.
Liam Bird: Thank you so much to Jon for giving up his time to speak to me. In this episodes link of the podcast you will find also a video of Jon and Sam with the SPFL on completing the 42. You will also find a link on how to vote for Jon in the upcoming football content awards. While you’re there, why not cast a vote for Level Flaying Field? That’s it for this episode. we’ll be back in a few weeks time. Stay well, go into a sporting event, have fun. Till next time, bye.