Johnny Phillips: Sneak peek gives Wolves fans a great insight

It was a great first day getting to experience the ins and outs at close quarters of the club at work. In all, our cameras will spend three full days with the club before the programme airs.

Access at this level in professional football is never easy to acquire. Unlike some other sports who open their doors more readily to broadcasters and other media, football as an industry in this country has always been some way behind. It is to Wolves’ credit that they were open to our suggestion about the filming.

There are numerous reasons for such reticence. It is by far and away the most popular sport and the demands on top clubs can be very high. Football in this country has become a global game and clubs find themselves handling enquiries from media organisations all around the world. Never before has there been such demand for content. Logistically, it is impractical to satisfy all the requests.

From a subjective point of view, working for a sports broadcaster, the more that clubs give of themselves the better. There is an alternative viewpoint that the inner sanctum of football clubs is sacrosanct and should be off limits, so let’s try to debunk that.

They are a workplace like any other. There may be an element of awe and grandeur about them, but the reality is that what goes on much of the time is no different to what is happening in offices up and down the country.

For supporters, the more they understand the workings behind them, the more empathy they can have with decisions being made.

Other professions acknowledge this. The impressive television series 24 Hours in A&E and 24 Hours in Police Custody touch on far more sensitive and controversial issues than any sports club could be involved in. They really do involve matters of life and death and much of the filming covers these tragedies in their raw and emotional detail.

The police series is particularly eye-opening in revealing the rule of law and the difficulties in gaining convictions in seemingly clear cases. There are huge strains put on officers to ensure justice is served and they don’t always have the resources to cope with this. It gives the viewer so much more understanding than they would otherwise have.

Now it is easy to imagine what Tony Pulis, Mark Hughes, Mick McCarthy and Co would say if a camera was pointed in front of them during a half-time team talk with their teams having being played off the park for the previous 45 minutes in a crucial promotion or relegation battle. That is not going to happen any time soon.

But a look around other sports shows it is happening more and more. The British Lions’ tours every four years are covered in forensic detail with documentary camera crews given access to the most intimate moments of preparations and team talks.The air is often turned blue, but it is accepted that in elite level sports the use of confrontational and explicit language is present. It is about context and understanding the context as much as anything else. It does over-step the mark on occasions in the same way that there is confrontation in any walk of life. It is not unique to sport.

In American Football, television cameras are granted access to the dressing rooms before and after NFL games. This is because, unlike football, television existed long before NFL. The sport is dependent on television for its audiences and revenue streams. The sport has actually evolved around television, with breaks in the game designed specifically for the needs of advertisers. This is a chosen route by the sport’s authorities and fans are generally happy with it.

Nobody is saying football should change for television, but a greater transparency that doesn’t compromise clubs can only benefit supporters and viewers – those who fund the game.

Our first day of filming involved a close-up look at the fitness training followed by defensive and attacking play in confined spaces. It was fascinating to watch and the first impression gained was that there were some unique drills being worked on. When speaking about these methods to the British players afterwards, they told me that many of them were original compared to anything they had come across before as professional footballers in this country.

Nuno wasn’t giving away any tactical secrets or tricks of the trade by letting the cameras in. But there was enough to make it a worthwhile exercise for the viewer. From the perspective of someone who has seen hundreds of training sessions over the years, it was interesting to watch how different players got to grips with different drills. There have been weeks of double training sessions, players purposefully being sent into pre-season games with a certain amount of fatigue to see how they cope. Wolves’ pre-season isn’t about results, it is about preparing for day one – Middlesbrough next Saturday – and beyond. All this was new to someone who had not seen any of these preparations.

So, if you’re heading off to Wolves’ last pre-season friendly this afternoon, do have a look out for our cameras as we’ll be looking to capture the essence of everything happening at Molineux on a match day. Just make sure you don’t swear…