By Matt Williams
FA Cup Final, 136 Premier League appearances, 49 International Caps, Interim management, and numerous media endeavours. Danny Gabbidon has done it all in the game. However, the former Cardiff City defender admits one of his early media ventures was a mixed experience.
Former player turned media-mogul Danny Gabbidon hung up his boots in 2015, but did not put his feet up, as he decided to dip his toes into the world of sports media. However, he claims an early venture with an unnamed sports broadcaster, was the biggest learning experience of his media career to date.
“I don’t work with them so much now. I do the odd thing for them but in a way, it was good, but in a way, it was not so good.”
“The opportunity that they gave me in my media career before I’d even really learnt anything, was a great lesson for me. Learning on the job, the different elements of it, learning to commentate, and I’d done a couple of gigs for them just to kind of get me into the swing of things.”
He continued, “but, to kind of get thrown into that and experience the different elements, it wasn’t just commentating, I was having to go on different shows, and shows that were very different.”
Gabbidon believes this broadcaster’s variety of presenting styles, allowed him to express different aspects of his personality.
“Anyone who listens to their shows knows they have very different presenters who want different things, so it was a good learning experience in having to show different parts of my personality, when to be serious, when to have a bit of a laugh and a joke.”
The former Cardiff City centre-back says his experience with the broadcaster opened his eyes to the dark side of sports media.
“I suppose I then saw the other side of it, and how some of these companies are run and how they treat people as well, and that kind of annoyed me a bit. It was one of the reasons I don’t do as much work for them now, because I just didn’t really like how they went about things, with the way they treat people there.”
The 41-year-old says he often felt he needed to act like someone he wasn’t in order to suit the show’s blueprint.
“I found that sometimes I was having to be someone who I wasn’t in order to fit into that kind of station, and how some of the other people are on that station.”
Gabbidon believes the broadcaster’s methods of driving views through controversy, was an element of sports media he was not aligned with.
“The station is very different to working for BBC Radio Wales, where a lot of it is about controversy and getting people to phone in and getting likes on social media and stuff like that.”
“That’s not really how I am, and I just felt at times that I was maybe not suited there and to working for that kind of station; so, I learnt a lot initially from them because they gave me that opportunity and I didn’t really know too much about what the station was about.”
Ultimately, Gabbidon found positives from his time with them, and says the learning curve educated him on the style of media which best suits him.
“By the end I had kind of learnt about how some of these companies can operate at times, with some things that I liked and didn’t like, and things that didn’t suit me as well. So, it was a bit of good and bad really with that.”
