An evening with AFTV founder and presenter, Robbie Lyle
We were joined, via zoom, by AFTV founder and presenter Robbie Lyle, who took some time out of his day to chat with Bloomsbury Football players, parents and coaches to share his story about Arsenal Fan TV, the Premier League and Grassroots Football.
Robbie started AFTV in 2012 as a way to connect and share the voices of Arsenal fans at games around the country, and since then has amassed over 1.3 million subscribers with over 980 million views worldwide. The channel has inspired other fan bases from different clubs to start their own channels, and while often the source of rival fanbases entertainment following poor performances, the platform has gifted the fans a louder voice, which has grown from the UK all the way to the United States, Australia and even Singapore. “About 50% of the audience is UK based. I say the next biggest audience after that is America. We've got a massive following in America, and Canada, Australia as well is massive. We've got a massive following in Africa as well, especially in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa. And we've also got a good following in Singapore as well” stated Robbie.
When asked how he deals with the criticism of presenting on such an open platform, Robbie answered “I think criticism is never a bad thing. As long as it's constructive, you've got constructive criticism, and then you've got negative criticism. But if there's constructive criticism, you've got to take it on board. But listen, it goes with the territory, the bigger you get, the more critics there are out there.”
AFTV has come from very humble beginnings, with Robbie stating, “when we first started we borrowed our equipment, we borrowed a camera, we borrowed a mic, you know, and it was a very slow process to get videos edited, and get them out”, which has now led to the channel using top of the line cameras and working out of a studio next to the Emirates Stadium. However, Robbie was keen to point out that you don’t need fancy equipment these days to start your own channel, “you can do a YouTube channel and Instagram channel, TikTok, wherever it is, you can do all of that just by using a very good phone. If you've got a very good phone, you can film content. You don't have to have all that equipment to get started because we certainly didn't.”
Robbie shares his love of Arsenal and Premier League football, with the Grassroots game, his own son playing both academy football and at grassroots himself - recently trialling with Leicester City and previously at MK Dons - with Robbie travelling every weekend, like most of our parents and players, to fixtures around the city. “My son plays a lot of football. My son's 11 and he was just having trials at Leicester, then this whole pandemic come and stopped it. So he's really frustrated. He also plays for his grassroots team, normally we’re taking him all around the place every Saturday, Sunday, training during the week so I know all about what these youngsters must be going through having no football at the moment is really horrible.”
The importance of maintaining good habits through online learning, even in football wasn’t lost on Robbie either. When talking about Bloomsbury Football’s Live Sessions, Robbie urged players to take the opportunity to practice and keep up with their football from home, “log on, and enjoy it because you want to get yourself ready for when the season comes back. Because we will be coming back out and playing football again and you don't want to come out and you're super rusty. So those little bits, you know, when you do those bits when you come out, when we come out and it's locked down and we go back into playing football, you guys are going to be ahead of everybody else. Especially at the moment, when we’re stuck inside, it's good to do it. So please, please, please, I'm begging you, log on.”
We’re extremely grateful for Robbie taking the time to come and talk to the Bloomsbury family, sharing his knowledge, experiences and advice with us all and we look forward to seeing him in the future, saying “when the lockdown finishes invite me again. I'd love to come down and see what you guys do.”