Evening Meeting with Rob Sproston

Rob began his presentation by explaining that whilst at school he was always more interested in sports rather than academic subjects and coupling this with an interest in photography, it followed naturally that he began to develop a career in sports photography.

He went on to explain that as a junior member of the team he always got the short straw which meant travelling to take action photographs of the less glamorous football teams in the F.A.

He recalled that an incidient at one of these games gave him a “claim to fame” on the TV programme Question of Sport. One of the items on this programme was “What happened nest” and showed  Jimmy Case shooting at goal from fairly close range. The answer to the question was that he missed goal and hit Rob, who was seated behind the goal taking photographs, squarely on the head and knocked him off his stool.

As he progressed he was given higher profile games During this period he took what turned out to be an exculsive photo of a famous England player being sent off for the only time in his career. The photograph was synicated around the world and Rob received a small fee. He went on to explained that had such a photograph been taken and syndicated today he would have recived many thousands of pounds.

Having  visited many Countries in his career, he decided to move into Sports Event Management and now specialises in organising these events and providing high profile speakers for other sporting occasions.

In giving the vote of thanks  Rotarian Geoff. Parsons reminded  members that in addition to the activities that Rob had talked about, he also puts on many sporting events to raise money for local childrens charities.