Unsung

This is the Unsung podcast, introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss.

In this episode, we meet and tell the story of one of the most influential people in sport in the 21st century.

But this person isn’t a player, nor a coach, nor a big-money investor.

He’s a computer scientist.

He didn't need trophies, the ear of powerful politicians, or a billion-dollar bank account to make his mark. Just some nifty cameras and a few lines of code.

His name is Paul Hawkins, and he’s the man who invented Hawk-Eye and changed sport forever.

In the episode, he describes the three sliding doors moments in sport – one in cricket, one in tennis, and the other in football – responsible for paving the gradual then sudden path towards AI. And we also discuss sport’s most controversial subject: VAR…

Quotes:

Paul Hawkins, Hawk-Eye Innovations

"I ended up losing at Henley. I was in the university A four and we lost to the university B four, which we should never have done. I think I've probably learned as many life lessons through sports disappointments. Many years later, I'm still a little bit bitter about it!"

"I had 5,000 pounds, which is all the capital investment Hawk-Eye has ever had. And with that I developed a brochure, and went out to paint the vision gauge the interest."

“Then my bit of luck came, that with the last bit of my 5,000 pounds, I managed to get on test match special. Ironically, Jonathan Agnew's not been the biggest fan of Hawkeye but if it wasn't for him, it probably never would've happened.”

"Credibility takes a long time to build up and a short amount of time to lose.”

"If it wasn’t for Frank Lampard’s goal, maybe football would still be without technology."

"If you had a podcast with five or six people, they'd all have different ideas about the right way to improve VAR. And the reality is, until you actually try some things, you don't know the consequences of doing it. The ideas I've put into onto the table is to make [VAR] a challenge system."

Explore more

The Twinning Project

This is the Unsung podcast, introducing the sports starts you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss. 

We’ve got a special episode for you this time around, which was recorded live as part of the 2025 Morpeth Book Festival in March. 

It was great to be part of the event, alongside some big-name authors who actually know what they’re doing. 

The talk is titled Not All Heroes Wear Kits, and it’s something of a whistlestop tour through a few of the Unsung characters I’ve written about, including one or two that podcast listeners may be familiar with, alongside others who I’m speaking about the first time. 

And, like a pound shop Marvel villain, there’s a little bit of backstory that goes into the how and why I got into telling these unsung stories from outside the mainstream.

Many thanks to everyone who came along. Thanks also to Ben Hobson at Morpeth Library for his tech expertise, and to Sarah Jayne Kennedy Robson, Ian Leech, and all the festival organisers for inviting me along.

This is Unsung. Introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss.  

When it comes shamelessly over the top sporting events, the Super Bowl is peerless. A February staple in the American sporting calendar sees a four-hour extravaganza watched by an estimated 200 million people around the world. 

In the States, the Super Bowl is a nationwide cultural occasion. The sort of thing that forces electricity boards to steel themselves—a mass event that makes a noticeable mark on the economy. Advertisers must pay $7m for a 30-second ad slot, and—by far my favourite Super Bowl stat—the poultry industry alone sees 1.5 billion wings eaten in one night.

The Super Bowl transcends its sport, with non-football fans drawn to the spectacle. The fireworks, the A-listers, the multi-million-dollar half-time show. You don’t need to know your sack from your safety to enjoy the festivities. In Britain, we save our pomp and ceremony for royal occasions. But over the Atlantic, the glitz and the glamour are to be found in elite sports. Their kings and queens aren’t born in palaces; they’re made on turf. 

But these sporting monarchs don’t wear crowns on their heads. In American sports, the treasure is to be found on the fingers of its champions. It’s a tradition that is almost a hundred years old, and it’s one that has created as many off-field capers as on-field legends. 

It’s time to unwrap the history, the allure, the craft, and the intrigue behind Super Bowl’s championship rings.

Quotes:

Jason Arasheben, Jason of Beverly Hills

“It's deeply rooted in American education. When people graduate high school, they get a high school ring. When you graduate college, you get a college ring. There's a lot of fraternities and social clubs where they get a membership ring. The ring symbolises something. And it transitioned its way into the world of sports. They wanted something to celebrate their victory, a testament to their accomplishment. And I think that if you go back 50 years, they had rings, but they were very small and understated. Whereas now it's less of a practical piece of jewellery and more of a trophy to celebrate.”

“When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl we had numerous clients on that team, including Tom Brady, who went to the ownership and said they wanted to have something different.”

“The Tampa Bay ring was the first championship ring with a removable element. We needed as much real estate as possible on the ring to tell a better story. That’s why we created a removable top.”

“The LA Rams ring was probably my favourite ring. Not only did the top come off, but we also had a piece of the ball that was used in the Super Bowl. On the inside of the cap, we did a statuette of the stadium. And on the field, the green that's on the field is made up of remnants of the actual turf the players played on. There are so many storylines and easter eggs within that ring that it makes for an amazing storytelling experience when you're showing the ring.”

“Some owners will give one to every single employee, down to the person who's sweeping the floors. Every employee that did anything for the Rams, Mr. Kroenke and his family delivered them a ring. Which was amazing.”

Explore more

Buy tickets to see Unsung live at the Morpeth Book Festival. Alexis James: Not All Heroes Wear Kits at Morpeth Library.

This is Unsung. Introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss. 

As the final whistle blows on 2024, we’re back with a review of the sporting year. As you might expect by now, we’ll be taking an alternative look through the calendar and picking out its lesser-lauded legends. 

We’ve got pioneers, innovators, outsiders, and entertainers, many transforming sport and making their mark away from the mainstream glare.

So, like a middle-aged bespectacled Turkish sharpshooter, let’s fire the opening shot on 2024: The Unsung Year in Review.

For the second year running, the Unsung podcast has been nominated as a finalist in the Sports Podcast Awards. This time around, we’re shortlisted in two categories: Best Sports Documentary Podcast and Best Olympics and Paralympics Podcast. 

We’d love your vote! You can do so in the links below:

This is Unsung. Introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss. 

In the UK alone, over four million people participated in some form of swimming in 2023. 

And while the pandemic prompted a flurry of pool closures that continue today, many defied this worrying trend by heading for a dip outdoors in lakes, rivers, lochs, and seas. Over half a million of us took a dip in open water last year. 

And yet, in a twisted irony, Covid-19 also triggered a shortage of qualified lifeguards to keep us safe.

And so, in this episode of Unsung, we meet some of the country’s best lifeguards to discover why they do what they do, and to see if we can’t persuade a few more to follow their lead…

Many thanks Fay Tennet and her lifeguarding team at the Great North Swim for having me tag along as they went about their work with such diligence and expertise. 

My thanks also to the Royal Lifesaving Society for their help and support, and of course to the organisers at the Great North Swim for letting me come along.

Head to the links below to find out more about taking part in the Great North Swim or how to sign up as a volunteer lifeguard.

Quotes:

"I'm a sort of serial volunteer, so I just keep saying yes to stuff. It's great. And it does bring a huge amount of experience of things that you never even think about. For me, my personal drive is that I want to help people love what I love."

"Everyone's got a different story to what brought them to the water's edge. But all those stories have got a common thread, which is that We're all just human and we're all just trying to be better people. So that's why I came here today, just to kind of affirm that. And it's nice to give back."

"I'd always encourage people to volunteer; you get a lot out of it."

"Your days can be really long and really boring and wet and windy, and then within a millisecond something happens, and you've got to be on it. One minute you might be chatting to swimmers and saying, 'Oh, have a nice swim, isn't it lovely?' And the next minute you're being alerted to a medical emergency. And you are part of a team that is responding to basically save somebody's life. It really brings it home to the reason you're there."

"Everything in life is quite heavy for a lot of people. Being in the outdoors is risky. But it's not risky if you do it in the right way. And this event is the right way to do it. You know, and that's why we're here today."

Explore more

Bored Olympic lifeguard at Rio 2016