Steering Group
Meet The Team
The make-up of the core group has been determined in consultation with industry stakeholders. The group will steering group will constantly review the network’s direction and wider membership to ensure it is suitably representative.
Roger Domeneghetti
Roger is a senior lecturer at programme lead in journalism at Northumbria University. His research focuses on the societal history of sports media and the (re)presentation and negotiation of individual and collective identities therein. His first monograph From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football’s Journey Through the English Media, which was first published in 2014, was shortlisted for the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for Sports History. A revised and updated second edition was printed in 2017. Prior to this, Roger worked in print and online media for more than 20 years. He continues to write for a variety of publications including The New European, The Blizzard, and BBC History Magazine
Dr Beth Fielding-Lloyd
Beth is a Principal Lecturer in the Academy of Sport and Physical Activity at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research interests are in the fields of equity policies and media representations of gender in sport. Recent projects include critical analyses of the professionalisation of women's football in England, social media abuse of women working within sport, and international comparisons of pay equity protests in sport as discursive practice. As Teaching and Learning Portfolio Lead in her department, Beth oversees the quality assurance of courses and leads enhancement and innovation of learning, teaching and assessment.
Dr Ali Bowes
Ali is a senior lecturer in the Sociology of Sport. Her current research focuses on sociological examinations of women’s sport, in particular: Sociocultural examinations of professional/elite women’s sport, media representations of women in sport, and the intersections of gender and national identity in sport. She is on the Editorial Board for Managing Sport and Leisure and is a Reviews Editor for The History, Culture and Sociology of Sports specialty section in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. Ali is a board member of the Football Collective, an active member of the International Sociology of Sport Association, and a member of the Women's Sport Collective. She has been interviewed about her research for both television and radio, and has had her research featured in a range of media outlets nationally and internationally.
Andy Cairns
Andy joined Sky News as a sports editor in 1989, having previously worked for newspapers in Surrey and South London and BBC East and BBC News. He was part of the team that launched Sky Sports News—Britain’s first dedicated sports news channel— in 1998 and he led a team of highly skilled multi-platform journalists also producing sports news for Sky News and Sky Sports Digital Media. Alongside his work at Sky, Andy has also been on the accreditation board of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) since 2010, before also becoming a director and trustee in 2016.
Andrew Ducille
Andrew joined BCOMS as Operations manager in 2021, becoming the organisation’s first full-time employee. He has a has a wealth of project management experience, having worked at some of the largest football foundations in the UK. He managed adult education programmes at Brighton’s Albion in the Community, oversaw alternative education programmes for Charlton FC Community Trust, he has also led on social inclusion programmes across London for Chelsea FC Foundation. Andrew was also Regional Manager for the Rio Ferdinand Foundation.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
One of Britain's greatest Paralympic athletes, Tanni, amassed a medal haul of 11 gold, four silver and a bronze over 16 years and five Paralympic Games. Since here retirement as a Paralympian, Tanni has continued to be involved in sport and physical activity. She is a Board Member of the London Marathon, the Sportsaid Foundation, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Join In. In addition to this she is also a Board Member of several organisations including Transport for London, the London Legacy Development Corporation and the London 2017 Organising Committee. In 2010 Tanni became an Independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords, taking the title Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliffe in the County of Durham. As a working peer Tanni uses her experience and knowledge during debates in the House and she has spoken on a range of issues including Disability Rights, Welfare Reform, and of course, Sport.
Jon Holmes
Jon is the founder and lead of Sports Media LGBT+, a network, advocacy and consultancy group that's helping sports media and sport in general become more welcoming and inclusive. He is also a committee member for the Sports Journalists’ Association, the Football Writers’ Association, and InterMedia UK, and a director of Racing Pride, the LGBTQ+ inclusion in motorsport CIC. A journalist and editor with over 20 years of professional experience in writing, sub-editing and managing sports content for digital platforms, Jon is currently working as part of the Pride House Birmingham team, helping to deliver the venue and associated media and comms in and around the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in July and August. Previously he worked at Sky Sports where he co-ordinated and produced content relating to the organisation's support of Stonewall's award-winning Rainbow Laces campaign.
Dr Daragh Minogue
Daragh is Associate Professor at St Mary's University. He is currently the course lead for their postgraduate sports journalism programmes. He established the programme in 2010 and it was the first sports journalism Master's degree in the UK to be professionally accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists. His teaching focuses on journalism ethics and sport, identity and politics. Between 2015 and 2020 he contributed to the advanced journalism training course at Sky Sports News and has recently co-authored Sports Journalism: The State of Play (Routledge, 2020), a recommended textbook on numerous journalism programmes in the UK and abroad. More recently, he has collaborated on research focusing on how the media represent transgender athletes in women's sport.
Dr Emma Pullen
Emma is a lecturer in Sport Management in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. Her research interests are in the relationship between sport, social inclusion, and health and well-being. Her early research explored the experiences of chronic sport related injury. More recently, she has focused on disability sport, the role and impact of Paralympic media and broadcast, and gender (feminisms) at the intersection of disability. She has published several articles on these topics in journals such as Media, Culture & Society, and, European Journal of Communication. Emma is continuing her research in the area of disability sport and is currently involved in a number of research projects, collaborations, and public engagement activities.