I came here for one day`s work experience and I`m still here

It must be said that we are very sure that Dunfermline Athletic wouldn`t function quite as well without the volunteers

There are numerous groups within the football club, such as DASC, DADSC, Centenary Club, Young Pars, ParsTV and other individuals working to help out, such as those maintaining and cleaning the stadium throughout the week.

The Courier started to look at volunteers to give an insight to the work carried out. Their first port of call was ParsTV, no slight on any of the other fantastic jobs done by the other groups, but perhaps as coincidentally ParsTV happened to be at the Press interviews at the same time.

As with fan media there are many people up and down the country who volunteer to put together footage for club TV. Recently Courier Sport highlighted two supporters of Fife football clubs who use their spare time to create social media content.

Here we take a look at the amazing amount of work that goes into Dunfermline Athletic’s club TV channel and the team of volunteers behind it.

One of those is Brian Duncan who isn’t shy to admit that he “doesn’t understand football” (but like the techy stuff!). He moved to Dunfermline in 1978 with a background in software development.

Duncan is one of the people who work on “all the tech stuff”, creating a framework for the website and for Pars TV. On match days the technical setup an essential part so that the content is gathered to be transferred online – where they also put together the content delivery platform.

“On Pars TV we have got a platform to allow payments and allow people to log in for various things: subscriptions, payments, audio and what not,” he says.

“Duncan said he had tried his hand at audio commentary occasionally but Jordan goes ‘ cut !!!` .”

Jordan Burt is another member of the team. He is tasked with carrying out manager and player interviews, live commentary and video editing. While studying media at college – ahead of a course in broadcast media production at the University of Sunderland – he was encouraged to find a work placement.

“For my whole life I’ve always wanted to be involved in football and Dunfermline and commentating,” says Burt.

“So I emailed and asked if I could get involved.”

The ‘glue’ holding it together. He started on co-commentary before taking over the main role and developed other skills along the way.

“When I started video editing was a scary prospect, I could never see myself doing anything like that,” adds Burt.

“I learnt how to edit audio and then through some of the stuff at uni I used Adobe Premier Pro and it seemed quite straightforward for me.”

He started back in 2013 – a week before the club entered administration.

“Jordan is the glue that holds us together – from everything that he does – the commentary, the video editing,” says another member of the team Stephen Scott.

Scott – who has a background in telecommunications – answers with a flippant “everything” when asked what his role involves.

This is true to an extent as they will pick up odd jobs and help each other out where needed.

More specifically he is the cameraman on match days, for which he is “mostly self-taught”.

Learning ‘a lot’ during lockdown
Even more of a learning curve was when the country was plunged into lockdown.

Speaking as they set up for the recent visit of Falkirk, he adds: “We learned a lot during Covid.

“People expected the production values of Sky Sports when we were all of a sudden broadcasting full matches to audiences similar to what you’d get in the ground.

“I don’t think people realise we’re all vounteers.

“The club was great during that time, getting us what we needed.”

When is all said and done there is one main reason that fuels the passion in the team to keep giving up their time.

“I’m a fan – I was a season ticket holder for years – and this is great,” says Scott. “It’s great to have the feeling of the club is relying on you.”

There are other team memebrs who were not available to talk to the Courier, but are also very important team members,

(c) 2022 Craig Cairns and the Courier, Thanks to then for allowing us to copy the story.

After reading this story perhaps you might like to offer help on ParsTV. Anything from commentary, camera operation, stream production or kit setup for the stream production. Please get in touch.

Will look forward to further stories on the other volunteer activities.

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• Link to the Courier