British reporter has spent World Cup in KC. His grandfather was here decades ago
History tends to repeat itself. Just ask Joe Terry.
Terry’ is a soccer journalist born and raised in London. His job has taken him to the Kansas City area for the first time in his life; he’s following around the England national team in their quest to win their first FIFA World Cup in 60 years.
He’s now been to Dallas; Foxborough, Massachusetts; East Rutherford, New Jersey; and Atlanta for England’s games, and will soon see Mexico City for their round of 16 game against Mexico on Sunday, July 5. But, for the past couple of weeks, his home base has been in Overland Park.
It’s not too far away from The Inn at Meadowbrook in Prairie Village, where England’s team is staying. It’s also not too far away from where his grandfather once worked.
Back in the 1950s, Mike Terry was an established journalist at The News Chronicle, covering daily life in London. Contributions from the Ford Foundation to his newsroom allowed Terry to spend three months in the United States to see how American newspapers operated and hopefully bring some of the knowledge back to the United Kingdom.
From September to November 1957, Mike Terry was stationed at — you guessed it — The Kansas City Star. One of his stories was centered around American football, which he described as “homicidal chess.”
Almost 70 years later and Joe Terry’s found himself in the KC area.
“It’s just really, really interesting that kind of history is repeating itself a little bit, because I’m a journalist, my dad was a journalist, my mom’s a journalist and both my grandparents were journalists,” Joe Terry said. “It’s a family thing, but it’s like now it’s taken me back here to Kansas City.”
Mike Terry’s career later took him to editorial positions with The Mirror and The Sun, two of the largest daily tabloid newspapers in the world, before his death in 2011. But, it’s his stint in Kansas City that sticks out to Joe Terry the most, especially with another similarity Joe and his grandfather share.
Work and family balances
While Mike Terry was abroad in Kansas City, he left behind his wife, who was days away from giving birth to their third child.
While Joe Terry is abroad in Kansas City, he also left behind his wife, whose due date for their second child was July 1, the date of England’s 2-1 comeback victory over the Democratic Republic of Ghana in the round of 32 (the child could now be waiting to arrive during England’s next match, he said).
“About nine months ago, a lot of social media in the U.K. was all, ‘If you get your partner pregnant during this period, you get two weeks off from maternity leave during the World Cup,’” Joe Terry said. “I was the last person that that could apply to.”
He was torn between his two biggest passions: soccer and family. He grew up watching and player soccer in south London and still plays on an amateur team on Saturdays back home.
His first job after earning his undergraduate degree from Durham University and his graduate degree from Bath University was working as a remote translator during the 2014 FIFA World Cup hosted in Brazil, which set him on the path to where he is now.
“My life is football, and wanted to try and make sure that I could work in it as well,” Terry said. “I’ll never get bored of it.”
Terry’s grateful his wife gave him the blessing to cover England, but knowing what he left behind has been difficult. He’s hopeful this will be a memory he can pass down to the next generation.
Who knows, maybe Terry’s future grandchild will also take a work trip to Kansas City and learn about what he did while he was in the United States.
