[ Where did your interest in football media come from? ]

So, I probably started playing football when I was about 9 or 10 but I was never really too interested. Back then, when there was a big Champions League game or something, I didn’t really watch it - I was just on my laptop playing Roblox!

Later on down the line, my friend Ben (who was a big football fan) and I got into those Match Attax cards. This coincided with the Jürgen Klopp era at Liverpool and got me into the game a bit more.

In terms of the media side, I started on the radio at 13. Shortly thereafter, I started a podcast and when you’re doing a pre-recorded show, if it’s an hour-long show, you’re going to take two and a half hours to record it, because you want it to be perfect. Eventually, I got a bit bored of just talking to a screen and thought, how can I make this a bit more interesting? So, I started reaching out to all these players, agents and managers from around the world and I realized I’m sitting on a pile of gold and have stuck with that ever since.

[ Where did the idea - and the opportunity - to start a radio show/podcast come from? ]

My old head teacher was the main reason I got started - I actually had him come into our college not long ago and do a podcast with us! He was on a local radio station where he did a show speaking about Irish folk music and music more broadly. I was curious and thought to myself, ‘let me try and get involved’. I ended up doing a 5 or 10 minute segment on one of his shows and started to appear more regularly. Maybe after the second or third week, I sent him an email telling him I had told my friends to tune in at the same time next week, and he pulled me aside and went, ‘look, it’s still my show, you’re not quite there yet!’

But eventually, he helped me find a way to get my own show on a local station and that’s how it really started.

[ Are you in college as well? How are you balancing this with all your work? ]

I'm currently studying at Global Academy. It's one of the best places to do journalism in the UK at my age and one of two places to offer the course I’m taking so young. I was always adamant that the minute I got there, I wanted to do a podcast. It’s a long, long journey there every day - it’s about four and a bit hours there and back, so it’s very hard to balance. I find myself on my day off having to do 3 or 4 podcasts in one day and I have to plan several weeks in advance.

It’s not easy, and I often get told, ‘don’t burn yourself out’! But it’s the joy of the job. And again, we’re getting people into the studio, we’ve even had people flying in from Spain, Romania, Poland, all over and there’s a joy to that. I think we’ve been pretty successful.

[ Can you explain the ideas/concept behind your two podcasts - The Bootroom and Inside The Mind Of? ]

Inside The Mind Of started when I was on the radio - it’s the one that started when I got bored of speaking to myself. I ended up speaking to Jordan Gibbs, a football agent and Alex Tatnell in Australia and really built from there. I’ve been really privileged to speak to David Hodgson, who won the European Cup and Kenny Hibbitt, who played for Wolves, just to name a few!

One goal I have for the podcast that’s pretty unique is to interview someone from every country in the world. It’s proving to be quite difficult!

The Bootroom is a project that I started with my college mates, where we get people from different countries, or the local area, and sit down with them face-to-face and talk to them about their careers. We speak about their journey in chronological order. It’s quite similar to Inside The Mind Of but more focused on breaking down the barrier between an in-person interview and an online one - so, I’d say the main difference is in the way that they run.

[ How do you find the guests for your podcasts? ]

In the beginning, when I was starting from scratch, I started on social media - LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter sometimes. You’d be surprised by how many people at a high level would like to come on a podcast! Now, it’s maybe a little easier because I’ve done 120 episodes already but, for example, Mark Warburton is coming on next week and maybe he’s never watched it but it’s really good to know that he thinks I’m a trustworthy guy and knows what it is.

When I’m speaking to these people, it’s great because I can build a connection with them and, if it’s gone well, I can ask them if they know someone else who would be willing to come on. This is always great when guests can help in this way.

I've also had a couple people reach out to me, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend I've had hundreds, it's probably been about 5, but it's better than no one. It's good to know that people want to come on.

[ What makes a good podcast? ]

That’s a big question. I would say, when I'm producing it, if someone is a good storyteller, is open to all sorts of questions, is funny and you have some chemistry or get on well. Often, literally a minute into a podcast, I can tell if it’s going to be a good episode.

[ Why podcasting vs other forms of content - especially short form? ]

Podcasting is a really good tool. I’ve done a few live shows, especially at college, and it’s quite similar to podcasts in the way they run but the reason podcasting is great is because I can have that forever. You can’t have a live show or a radio show forever but I can go back and see a podcast that I did two years ago and see how far I’ve come and things like that.

In terms of short-form content, I’m absolutely rubbish at editing. I can talk in front of a camera or get my phone up and be like, ‘the Watford manager’s been sacked’ - which is quite a regular occurrence - and maybe get a couple of thousand views but I think I’d get quite demotivated. There are people out there doing more clickbait stuff but for me the question is, do I want to be that clickbait guy or do I want to be a journalist?

That’s sort of the place I’m at. I don’t want to be pretending that things are going on when they’re not because that would probably ruin the reputation I have with someone. I don’t want to be known as that guy.

[ Have you had any trouble or been underestimated because of your age? ]

I would say, because I look quite old, people often don't think I'm quite as young as I am!

There’s definitely been a few times where I look back now and think, okay that was weird or that was a silly thing to do - and I’ve been told that by a few people. But those are mistakes I made early on and you build from them and learn.

In terms of being underestimated, not so much. I think now it should get easier every day and with every interview.

[ Do you try to lean into your age, almost as a ‘brand’ or, rather, something you don’t want to necessarily draw attention to? ]

I'd say the latter. Of course, sometimes I have to mention it, like when I was nominated for the Football Content Awards - but in terms of my brand, I want to be seen as a normal journalist.

I think to myself, who cares? I’ve had about 40 guests come into the studio (to record a podcast) and I’ve never really mentioned my age - though, maybe they get a rough idea when they come in and realize it’s a college and there are children walking around everywhere!

[ You’re working on a lot of projects - including some political journalism and other non-football topics - how do you think about specializing or building a ‘niche’ in football media/media more broadly? ]

Yeah, so, for example, my YouTube channel is named ‘Jamie McCreedy’, it’s not the podcast, it’s my channel. I use my own channel sort of like a portfolio, where I just sort of ‘dump’ all kinds of videos onto.

Currently, I’m not really sure what I want to do long-term. I want to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m very happy with football, I’m very happy with politics and these are really the only two places I want to go down. So, if I can keep it down the middle and take a bit from both sides, then I’ll keep doing that.

[ Do you think there’s value in becoming an expert in one topic vs having a broader range? ]

Well, I often get told that people don't think my ‘ball knowledge’, my knowledge of football, is very good! And politics is a hard game to learn, no one is ever going to know 100%. So, for me as a young person into politics, you’re often underestimated and I want to try and learn more and build on my knowledge.

In terms of football, again, it’s about trying to build on what you know. Quite a lot during the podcast, I’ll forget, or not know, a player who played for whatever team or something like that and we can have a bit of a laugh but I think the people side is more important than knowing every detail of every player anyway.

I think you can be a specialist in more than one thing. My passions are sport and politics and I think over time, if you’re passionate about something, your knowledge is just going to grow anyway.

[ What is something about football media, or sports media more broadly, that you think should change? ]

My honest answer is, I don’t quite know. I don’t like the clickbait stuff or things just for views. Things like having the first two seconds of the video being of you screaming into the camera to get a couple more views or the people that go, ‘come back for part two’, I just can’t be bothered.

I think at the top of the game, your Gary Nevilles and Gary Linekers, people have their opinions on them - I think they’re brilliant pundits - but you can’t really change them too much.

[ Do you have any views on what the next ‘trends’ or evolution(s) of football media might look like? ]

Podcasting, definitely. I think podcasting is going to skyrocket. I mean, it already sort of has. If you look at people like Thogden or KSI, you’ve got people who are famous as content creators and are now getting brand deals with all sorts of brands, whether it be Nike or the Fellas Studios.

I think that you’re losing a lot of your common journalists for content creators and people who are good at podcasting. I think you’re going to see more content creators like Chunkz - people who have a slight interest in football - becoming big-time football content creators.

[ You’re also working on a charity project in Kenya, how did you get involved with this? ]

In 2024, I was contacted by this man in Kenya called Gabriel. He told me a bit about his team there called Lion Sports Academy, an academy with ~170 boys and girls across every age group, and some of their challenges - and I offered to help.

Now, originally, I thought I could just help promote them on social media and share that I support this team and help collect donations for them. Anyway, first, I went to my school and asked them to help me by doing a non-school uniform day - a quite common event where everyone can wear their own clothes and they pay a pound. They said no about three times, so I went to them again, told them, ‘this is the last time, I’ll come to you, what can you do?’

They agreed to have a day where people from the local community could bring in boots for donation. I also did a GoFundMe to raise the money to send everything to Kenya. In the first year, we sent off 55 pairs of boots and about 100 tops.

For the second year, I went to places up and down the country to try and find kit. In my college, I organized a football tournament called the Kenya Cup, where everyone paid £2 - and we finally got to do a non-school uniform day!

In total, we sent over 115 pairs of boots and hundreds and hundreds of tops, shorts, socks, shin pads and other equipment as well as raising enough money to ship everything to Kenya.

In those first two years, I was doing everything on my own but now, about 5 or 6 months ago, I got contacted by Karla, a woman from America. It turns out she and some others had also been supporting Gabriel in different ways and wanted to work together. So, I got added to a group chat with all these Americans and probably being nice, everybody is above 50!

Anyway, these three people in America were continuing the legacy of a man named Paul Taylor, who had helped the academy for a long time but passed away recently. I brought up the idea of starting a charity to do this more sustainably - and now, we’re opening an American-based charity and I’m going to be the CEO at 17 years old. It’s quite a mad thing to say, isn’t it?

I’m really looking forward to this, and that’s where a lot of my time is going right now. We’re looking to help teams around the world with resources and also the change to sponsor players on scholarships and things like that. We’re also looking to support teams in America and in England. We often hear about people around the world who need help, and it's 100% true.

However, there are also people right outside your door that need help, so I think it makes sense to start with your local, and you build on into global stuff.

[ With regards to your future plans, do you have specific goals for your podcasts and your work more broadly - or how are you thinking about your future ambitions? ]

My goals build on a couple of things I’ve done in the past. So, first, for the last two years, I’ve been in the Football Content Awards, which is the biggest award in football for content creators. The first year I was nominated in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion category because of my work in Kenya and last year in the Best Young Content Creator category. I didn’t win - didn’t actually rank in any of them, but my ambition is to keep getting to these award ceremonies. It’s also a great place to meet people in the industry from all over the world. I met Martin Tyler, for example and that was great.

I also have the ambition to put myself out there and try things. For example, one of my pinned videos on my social media is me applying for the manager job at Cheltenham Town as a 15-year old! I had reached out to the board members and people at the club, and they responded and said they were considering my application - okay, look, they probably didn’t consider my application but it was a great experience. Since I really got into the game, I’ve wanted to be a football manager, and I think that would be a great career path.

Do I want to be a manager? Do I want to be a journalist? I think I want to be all of it!

I’m not very focused on numbers and getting views or followers on my videos. I’m happy with the fact that people want to come and speak to me and I’m just going to keep going and hopefully, more opportunities will appear.