Interview: Rolf Choutan and Damaris Cooke on being BT Sport’s new BSL presenters (BSL)

Deaf Futsal player Rolf Choutan and former England Women’s Football captain Damaris Cooke have been selected as BT Sport’s new British Sign Language (BSL) presenters, as part of its SignUp initiative with the mobile network EE.

SignUp looks to raise awareness of the Deaf community in sport and make BT Sport’s programming more accessible, with the New Signing initiative seeing two Deaf individuals present a range of live sport throughout 2023 – such as the UEFA Champions League Final in 2023.

Jamie Hindhaugh, head of BT Sport, said: “Damaris and Rolf showed great energy and their personalities shone through.

“They both struck a great balance between being charismatic and adding personal touches while also delivering the right information. We cannot wait to see them both develop on screen this year.”

Ahead of a documentary series following their journey airing on BT Sport 1 and EE platforms today at 3:45pm, The Limping Chicken’s Liam O’Dell sat down with Rolf and Damaris to find out more about the initiative and their love of all things sport.

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Hey Rolf and Damaris, thanks for taking the time to chat. First question, really, is why did you decide to apply for SignUp in the first place?

Rolf: I love sport, I love football. Considering I have no real background in sport, an opportunity to work in sport, I felt, was in my favour. I have no interest in training to be a physiotherapist, I’m not going to be a professional footballer, so I thought I’ve got nothing to lose.

I’m lucky that I have lots of friends that work in the deaf community, and they let me know that this was available. I don’t have social media, so I was relying on people to let me know I’ll give it a go.

I think, really, the casting process happened so quickly. I’ve been very lucky to have Damaris, who’s a bit more experienced than me to help me navigate the process a bit better.

Damaris: [It was] a no-brainer, really, because I love football, I love sport. I got loads of texts from friends and family asking me how we should apply you apply. I’m well known in the deaf community for being sports mad.

Like Rolf said, I do have the experience with scripting and autocue and working in the media world, but with working for BT Sport, I wasn’t sure exactly what’s expected of me, what they were looking for? I thought, just go in, show my personality, see what happens. It helped that I watch a lot of football, so I knew the significance of key moments in the clips and was able to give further background information.

Rolf, you talked about the interview day in December. What was that like? What was what was that experience? What did it involve?

Rolf: It was fantastic, completely different to anything I’ve ever experienced. Remember, my day job is in finance, so you don’t have to perform in front of an audience and you’re not expected to stand in front of a panel and [sign] live.

They gave us a laptop when you were in the green room, and they gave you two two-minute clips. One was Liverpool and Newcastle, a last-minute goal, and one clip was Man City v Brentford, where Brentford beat Man City. I’m lucky that I was in a pub for that game when it was live.

I struggled with the pauses in the football clips, because it’s easy to sign when the ball is in play but more difficult when there are gaps – for example, when the camera is trained on the players celebrating and the crowds.

Damaris: I didn’t know what to expect. I was the first that day. I kept waiting and waiting in the green room for about 45 minutes, which meant that I was overthinking. I wanted the interview to be over, but at the same time, it allowed me to settle down and remind myself why I was here – my background in football and just to let my personality shine.

It’s a good thing, but it’s also a bad thing because there’s a lot of self reassurance that was required.

It was a huge room, it was like a warehouse. I actually thought it was going to be a small, dingy room, with no windows, with a small panel of four, but instead it was massive. I remember walking and walking up to the panel, saying to myself ‘don’t fall over’, because I was wearing heels that day.

It was lovely because I had familiar faces on the panel [Lesley McGilp, of Red Bee Media] which helped me settle down. Once I left, I knew that I did really well and felt confident.

You both have experience in the world of sport already before this. How did you draw upon your past knowledge and experience with this opportunity?

Rolf: I don’t really have much experience working in sport. I go to Crystal Palace – I have a season ticket – at half time, everyone’s the manager. Everyone has an opinion who’s to come off, who’s to come on, why their formation isn’t working, why is the referee having a s*** day!

So that helps. I am a fan, I can talk about football for hours, much to the annoyance of people around me, and that was the element. […] I do have the fan perspective, I love sport, I’m kind of an everyman, man of the street, who watches football obsessively. I think that’s what I would bring. The fact that I have a broad interest in sport, I’m willing to learn and I do have the passion which is not something you can create.

Damaris: I have a wife, I have a sister who don’t care for football, so it means sometimes, when I watch football – especially with significant moments – I have to explain the background. Why was that particular moment important? That means I’ve made it accessible for them to understand. So my passion is conveying the significance of moments and making sure they understand. This is a great opportunity for me to talk about something that I love, day in, day out, but also take into consideration those who [aren’t into] football and how to bring them into football.

Already, friends who are non-fans are saying they will watch the BSL translations, because now it’s accessible and they genuinely want to learn.

That’s kind of helpful for my next question. Deaf people are still experiencing problems accessing certain sporting events. I think, for example, of the Super Bowl in the US. Why do you think it’s important for Deaf people to be able to kind of engage and connect with sport? Why is that important?

Rolf: For me, it’s just a bit of a stupid question – not you, personally – but I mean, it’s a basic right, and the idea of a question mark around why it needs to be justified, I struggle with. Maybe you could argue that deaf audiences are very small, but if your principles, your mission statement says ‘we aim to provide sport for all’, then you have to have to consider all.

English subtitles, for a lot of Deaf people, they don’t understand. The BSL translation gives them that quality of access, which is something that every modern society should strive for. The question should be more about, why aren’t we doing this?

Damaris: You have wheelchair ramps and lifts everywhere, you have Braille too, so why don’t you have BSL access? The Deaf community is often overlooked, often forgotten about. People say, ‘oh, maybe not many people will watch the BSL translation’, but that’s the same principle as the wheelchair access and Braille formats – not many people will use it but it’s there in the event of someone wanting to access it.

Like Rolf said, the question should be the other way around: why aren’t we providing access? I know it always takes something to happen to have a ripple effect, but hopefully this is the start of the ripple effect. It’s not everything, but hopefully in the future, this will be looked back as a key starting point. So thanks for BT Sport for making it happen.

And finally, what have you learned up until this point, and secondly, what it is that what it is you’re looking forward to with this opportunity?

Rolf: Importantly, I’ve made a world of work outside of banking, but also the structure. I do struggle with social networking, it makes me feel quite isolated. In a high-performing environment, people don’t have that much time to repeat and make sure that I understand and I’m included.

Not only is my co-worker someone I really like, but everything they’ve done, [they’ve done] with accessibility in mind. I’ve learned a lot. I am entitled – I deserve – to perform to the best of my ability. It is society that disables me – it’s the social model of disability. That’s what I’ve learned.

I’ve been doing training with Red Bee Media […] That’s been fantastic, learning how to work with an autocue and be in front of a green screen and how to make sure that I engage with the audience and sign correct, accurate BSL not the BSL that I sign with my friends.

Damaris: With media training, like Rolf said, it’s also really interesting because it’s not just the BSL translation of everything, it’s also working out what to mention, what to leave out. Because really, when people watch football, they don’t want to watch me and Rolf talking all the way through, because really, everything is on-screen. It’s a matter of us learning when to interject with information, when to add value. It’s not because, ‘oh, I’ve got the media experience’, it’s about us learning together when to say something. So really for me, that skill is a new thing for me to learn.

For the future, I hope accessibility branches out across all sports as currently it’s only just men’s football. I hope it’s women’s football, which is a big passion of mine – also other sports. There’s so many deaf people out there with so much knowledge of other sports. It’d be nice to maybe give [others] an opportunity. Like, Rolf hasn’t got the experience, but he’s got the passion and the knowledge. So I hope that shows other deaf people that opportunities are out there for you, to be part of something you love doing. This is a platform to show that – to show that that is possible, that they can do it.

Rolf: I think from my personal perspective, I’m really looking forward to improving, learning how to be in front of the camera, how to add value, and the important tactical moments. Learning about football tactics from expert pundits who do this every day, taking my pub chat to the next level. But yeah, really just demonstrating that it is possible. We’ve both come from Deaf families, we’ve both had quite different journeys to get to this point, snd I think like Damaris said, broadening the representation – women’s football, other sports.

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Photos: BT Sport.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.