Non-league football fans locally might have recently started to notice a weird looking bright orange hovering object delicately propelling in the skies at the side of some the counties pitches.<\/p>\n
The more regular occurrences are at matches in the Nottinghamshire Senior League, Wollaton Angels\u2019 Charity games and those of the East Midlands Women\u2019s Regional League too, all filmed through the engine of self-employed roofer Andrew, who has recently set up his \u2018drone camera\u2019 to film amateur football games in and around the city of Nottingham, through his YouTube channel Grassroot T.V.<\/a><\/p>\n Andrew, who\u2019s recent matches included Basford United Development verses Radcliffe Olympic, Sandiacre Town against Woodthorpe Park Rangers, FC Sez and Stapleford Town, Retford Women against Mansfield Town Ladies and many more\u2026 Said on how he got involved in this strangest of situations, that it was all by total chance\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI brought the drone mainly for work, but a friend who manages West Bridgford AFC asked me to film his game for him to review. It was mainly an offer to get me out the house. Which I needed at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt took days to put the raw footage together and get it over to the lads and started taking up a lot of my time. So I thought I’d find a way to go live and when I did that, it also gave me audio, which prompted the notion for having scores and graphics overlaid on the video. I honestly never meant to build what I had, but I pretty much had all the means at my disposal, minus a few licences for software.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew continued \u201cAfter three long months of deep diving into broadcasting and learning what software\u2019s to use \u2013 I had managed to connect the drone to my laptop without buying specialist broadcast hardware\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis allowed me to get the content out faster and although I stopped going live to speed up the production, now it’s a case of when the game is finished so am I\u201d.<\/p>\n Currently Andrew\u2019s games are posted shortly after the local matches he\u2019s attended but future plans could see the Grassroot T.V broadcast go real time, with the man himself explaining \u201cOn the whole going live and everything else, I am set ready to go. It is just a case of having another laptop to send the production out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe currently run with one laptop and two mobiles. The drone itself has a 6k gimble and can shoot 1080p60fps with a one second delay. Coupled with its 720 degrees obstacle avoidance technologies and propeller guards we can fly safely for up to 3hrs in up to 40mph winds.\u201d<\/p>\n With exciting possibilities in moving forward, Andrew said \u201cAll of this just for a little hobby, To keep me sane at the weekends when I\u2019m not working, I see a potential to provide a platform for these upcoming ballers \u2013 I’d like to be able to monetize the channel and donate some back to the league\u2019s not so fortunate clubs and help out where I can. If I can\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMore camera angles are also possible, as well as interviews with players and managers of the clubs we visit and a full-time commentator would be magic, maybe with advertising or sponsorships within the production \u2013 well there no telling where this could go really \u2013 we are only just at the start.\u201d<\/p>\n