Giving The Game Away

GTGA Media

Giving The Game Away with Cam Scott and Joel Barber features interviews with a range of elite athletes including Olympic gold medallists, international footballers and BBC Sports Personality of the Year winners. Our aim is to humanise sportspeople by discussing their off-the-pitch interests, and highlighting lesser-spoken aspects of their lives such as dealing with rejection, recovering from injuries and handling the media. There are so many lessons to learn from sport, and by exploring the journeys of athletes, we are hoping to show how you can apply these learnings to your own lives.

  1. 06/08/2023

    Peter Hatzoglou | Warne's Wisdom

    At just 24, Australian cricketer Peter Hatzoglou already has a cricketing CV to envy. The legspinner is one of the most exciting young players in the game, is a Big Bash winner, and has also had stints in the UK playing for Oval Invincibles and Glamorgan… However, his journey to the top is more unusual than most and not that long ago a career in cricket was not a reality for him.  In fact, Peter took a break from the game in 2016 to focus on his exams and he had been trying to carve out a career in finance. Post-exams he returned to cricket, but just to play for his local village team Sunshine Heights and as recent as 2019 he was playing in the Cheshire 4th division. He was even working for KPMG as late as April last year and a professional cricketing career wasn’t really on his radar. That all changed rapidly though and just a year after playing in the Cheshire 4th division, Peter was making his BBL debut for Melbourne Renegades and receiving praise from cricketing royalty such as the late, great Shane Warne. A year after that and he won the competition with the Perth Scorchers and he's now a well-renowned figure in Australian cricket. It’s a remarkable rise from village cricket to BBL champion in the space of five years.  It was great to speak to Peter and hear about his incredible story and all the lessons he’s learned along the way - such as the importance of persistence, resilience and adaptability to change. He also speaks about the wisdom he received from Shane Warne who convinced Peter to come over to the UK and play some club cricket - which ultimately was the catalyst for him getting a Hundred contract with Oval Invincibles.  There's so much to learn from Peter's story and we loved chatting to him. We hope you get as much out of the episode as we did.

  2. 07/04/2022

    Anna Hemmings MBE | Beyond the Barriers

    Anna Hemmings is a six-time world champion, two-time Olympian and now a world-class keynote speaker and performance consultant. Anna’s sporting career can be summed up as not only one of elite high-performance but also one of consistent success against the odds. Initially, this was proving the British Head Coach wrong – who had told her when younger that she was not big or strong enough to ever compete at the highest level of her sport. Later on in her journey, she would overcome an even bigger hurdle. At the peak of her career, Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and told by doctors that she would never race again. In 2005, after two years of being kept out of kayaking, Anna made a miraculous return to fitness and won at the World Championships in Perth, taking her back to the top of her sport. Not surprisingly, her incredible efforts were recognised at the Sunday Times Sports Woman of the Year awards later that year, where she won the Champions award. Through all these experiences, Anna has become an expert in the field of high performance and resilience. As the founding director of Beyond the Barriers - a high performance consultancy that helps individuals and teams – Anna travels the world delivering lessons in leadership to a range of teams in the corporate world.  Anna has also appeared on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO, and, as two huge fans of that podcast, when we saw Anna on there we knew we had to get in touch. We loved having a similar conversation on the importance of connection, on how powerful a tool visualisation is and how understanding your true motivators can lead you to success.

  3. 06/06/2022

    Christian Wade | Redefining Success

    Christian is a former rugby player for England, British Lions & London Wasps. At 27 though, despite being one of the highest Premiership try scorers of all time, Christian took up a new challenge by becoming part of the NFL International Player Programme, securing a place on the Buffalo Bills squad & ultimately scoring a touchdown with his first competitive touch of a football. During the podcast, Christian talks about various mindsets, approaches and mental techniques he used during his career. The most notable of which was a mental shift he went through halfway through his career. When starting out on his rugby journey, Christian had moulded his training and his lifestyle all in pursuit of his ultimate goal - to play for England. However, when the call-ups did not come – much to the bemusement of many rugby fans - Christian said a negative mindset crept in, which then led to a period of change. From this point, Christian searched to evaluate what success meant to him, and why he was doing what he was doing. With the burden of the constant search of an England place removed from his shoulders, he was able to entertain, flourish and show people the extreme natural talent he had. As a result, opportunities opened up for him, like a two-year stint in the NFL and the opportunity to blaze a trail for English athletes wanting to make it Stateside. Fans among you will know that Christian is currently on the lookout for his next opportunity and challenge, and in our podcast he reveals what attracts him to the different leagues. For the first time in a broadcast interview, he reveals there have been offers, from an interesting mix of clubs around the world. It was an incredible experience speaking to someone who is constantly looking to push the boundaries of what he can achieve, someone who has done things differently to many of those around him and someone who was not afraid to sacrifice a position of comfort in pursuit of the unknown. This episode also marks the start of the new season for the podcast – we’ve got lots of interesting guests coming up and we can't wait to release some of the conversations

About

Giving The Game Away with Cam Scott and Joel Barber features interviews with a range of elite athletes including Olympic gold medallists, international footballers and BBC Sports Personality of the Year winners. Our aim is to humanise sportspeople by discussing their off-the-pitch interests, and highlighting lesser-spoken aspects of their lives such as dealing with rejection, recovering from injuries and handling the media. There are so many lessons to learn from sport, and by exploring the journeys of athletes, we are hoping to show how you can apply these learnings to your own lives.