From Mumbles to El Mundial: Joe Towns’ 40-Year World Cup Journey

The first World Cup I remember was Mexico '86. I’m sitting in my house in Swansea. Des Lynam is presenting. Golden sun scorched colours bursting through the TV, Gary Lineker’s arm in a plaster-cast, England’s players furiously surrounding the referee after Maradona's Hand of God. I remember playing football in Underhill Park in Mumbles that summer and trying to copy the goal Maradona scored against Belgium in the semi-final, the one where he is falling over as he shoots, scores and spins away to celebrate in the corner. 

I’ve wanted to go to a World Cup ever since. 

Fast forward 40 years, here I am, a Senior Content Producer for HBS, (Host Broadcast Services) making features for FIFA to distribute to broadcasters all over the world. The features I’m making will be seen by 100s of millions of viewers around the globe. The crew I’m working with are some of the best camera operators, producers and editors in the industry. My team have flown in from  Australia, France, Argentina, Spain and Germany. 

The NFL Super Bowl has an audience of about 220 million. This World Cup will be seen by over 5 Billion. 

It really is the biggest sports event in the world. And this year it’s been bigger than ever. 48 teams, 104 games. I’m based in Philadelphia where we have 6 games coming to the city. Every feature, montage or promo we make has to convey the joy of the World Cup, its impact on local communities, showcase the different cultures coming together, celebrate the love of football that unites them, and explore how it shapes their identity. This is the “Diaspora World Cup" and seeing these fans coalesce together around their teams - Haiti, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Curacao, Brazil, France, Iraq, Croatia, Paraguay -  is  a beautiful thing. These particular nations all play matches in Philadelphia throughout the group stages  and round of 16 and they all have communities across the city.  The unique stories we tell are all set alongside the history and story of Philadelphia - food, architecture, art, music, politics and and how they intersect with sport. The City of Brotherly Love. The City of the Underdog Story, of Rocky, of the Eagles NFL winning team. It’s my job to find the best stories and the right way to tell them.

Every day we build creative briefs, or we pitch ideas for promos and longer features and then we head out into the city to find the right locations, the right contributors, the right time of day to shoot, the right questions to ask. Everything is planned carefully. When you are working on the biggest broadcast event on the planet, the world is watching, so the content needs to be perfect. It needs to look spectacular. Cinematic. Local stories with a global impact. It needs to be editorially accurate, and it needs a creative treatment that will engage audiences, but also make sense to the wider world. 

So far I’ve filmed dancers from Ghana in a dance-off battle with dancers from the Ivory Coast dancing to a squad of Afrobeat DJs, I’ve filmed ballerinas from Latin America in an art gallery called The Magic Gardens, a giant mosaic of mirrors, I’ve filmed skateboarders flying  through the city centre landmarks waving flags from Curacao, I’ve produced Italian-American celebrity chefs making the famous Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches as a metaphor for making a World Cup winning team, we filmed on a river with the USA’ s only African American Rowing Club, we were with the Ecuador fans having a “banderoza” party on the Rocky steps the night before their game, I spent a day in the life following a Brazilian TikTok fan phenomenon with 1million followers, we covered a Croatian-American comedian doing a set about being Croatian in America during a Football World Cup, we shot a “Tailgating" feature about the American culture of parking outside the stadium, opening your car boot up and lighting a barbecue, then setting up a game of corn hole and having a party around the car until kick off time, and I made a feature at the Zoo where the zoologists picked a Fantasy Football team made up of animals from countries playing at the World Cup.

Sport Broadcast students and graduates all working at the FIFA/HBS production HQ in London.

On Thursday I was filming on a US Army base with a group of elite French pilots from the Patroille De France, the French version of there Red Arrows,  about how they are inspired by the speed and style of Mbappe, Dembele and co. Dressed in light blue denim jump suits, wearing aviators, these might be the coolest men I have ever met. 

We also go out daily to film city landmarks, the bridges at sunrise, and the skyline at sunset, the historical “Old City” quarter, the downtown district, the brownstone buildings, the baseball stadiums, the murals and graffiti, the statues and monuments. This footage is all made available to broadcasters and news outlets around the world who need it to set the scene as part of their coverage. 

My final game here is July 4th. One of the biggest of the World Cup so far. It’s Independence Day, it’s the 250^th Anniversary of American Independence, in Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The city that gave America its first libraries, universities, post offices, insurance offices. It’s where they invented the slinky, monopoly, bubble gum, revolving doors. It's the city of Brotherly Love. It’s the city of the underdog. It’s the city where Rocky was filmed. It’s where the Fresh Prince came from, QuestLove and the Roots, and TV shows like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. 

And it’s a World Cup knock-out game. And it’s France, the favourites. It’s a big deal. 

The final week we were asked to create features with a focus on history. I found some Benjamin Franklin aphorisms, (one of Philly’s most famous sons, who came up with quotes like “Failure to Prepare is Preparing to Fail”, “No Gains Without Pains”. ) I pitched an idea focused on the World Cup’s most iconic flags and the story behind their design. I had to find a Benjamin Franklin impersonator to narrate. Luckily we have a pair of Philly fixers, Ron and Larry, local guys who’s job it is to find the places and faces we need.

On Match Day my role is to tell the story of the fans from the fans perspective. We have to find a fan, or group of fans for every fixture. Fans with a story. A fan who is attending their first ever World Cup match, or maybe a fan who is attending their 50^th World Cup match. Fans with 100ft flags. Fans who made sacrifices to be here. Or a fan who is a famous Instagram influencer. Once we have found our fans, we film them at various points of the day - getting ready for the match, preparing flags, painted faces, beating drums, then we film them on their way to the game joining up with other fans, then we film at the match, belting out anthems, pouring out emotions. 

What’s been special about this World Cup, besides the amazing fans, the excitement and quality of the matches, is that I was able to help many of our Sport Broadcast MSc students, past and present, find work on the World Cup at the HBS Production Hub in London. 

We have enough students and graduates working on the World Cup this summer to make full starting eleven. With me as a manager. 

Dan, Eve, Oli, Jack, Dylan, Tom, Charlie, Cian and Will are all working as loggers, publishers and assistant producers in London with HBS. And out here in America we have several other graduates covering the tournament - Will Godwin as a videographer for Reach News agency, and Igor Petrov as a journalist for OKKO Sports. And me, producing features about the Greatest Show on Turf for the host broadcaster. 

Fortunately my students didn’t have to wait 40 years to get a gig on the World Cup. They just had to come on the Sport Broadcast MSc, work hard and get themselves #IndustryReady.