Ellis Platten: Football Is About Moments

The Norfolk-born content creator recalls his rise on YouTube, meeting David Beckham, his agonising search for a matchworn Messi shirt and why Japan is the best place to go to watch football.

When Ellis Platten started his ‘Away Days’ YouTube channel in 2014, aged 16, he never envisaged the career he now has over a decade later. His intentions back then was to get into TV presenting so he wanted to create a showreel on YouTube. “I was already going to football games with my friends each week around Norfolk and wanted to document that in front of a camera, to stand out from other university applicants.” By the end of sixth form, Ellis knew he wanted to pursue pre- senting but didn’t want to go to university, so declined his place at UCFB.

Ellis went into social media man- agement at 18 whilst continuing ‘Away Days’ on the side. He recalls contemplating quitting YouTube several times; “everything that has happened from ‘AwayDays’ I owe to my previous partner.”

Ellis reflects on his career so far and notes that 2019 was the year that his perception changed. His primary aim was to develop the channel; improving the content, focusing on the editing process more and being better in front of camera. "It got to the point where I was thinking this could look good on my CV, to this could be my job now."

By producing football shirt content, the channel continued to grow as a new batch of consumers watched the videos. Ellis would open mystery boxes through the UK’s lockdown and once restrictions eased he went shirt hunting in charity shops. With audience numbers growing, Ellis took his shirt content to the next level by searching for his most desired football shirts and showing off his shirt collection at Peterborough United’s stadium. One of the most well documented of Ellis’ searches is for a match- worn Lionel Messi shirt; in fact, there is a playlist consisting of ten videos. Ellis was very open about his search for his most desired football shirt, with several of his purchases coming back as ungenuine from expert verifiers.

His Messi shirt sits proudly in his home alongside some of his oth- er pride and joys. “There are sev- eral shirts in my collection that are my favourite; the Messi one notably, I have a matchworn Alan Clarke 1970 England shirt which is the same shirt worn at the 66’ World Cup. The Fiorentina Mario shirt is also up there as it’s so iconic. I’m been fortunate enough to have designed a few of my own football shirts too which is incredible.”

In 2021, Ellis launched a new se- ries on ‘AwayDays’ as he collabo- rated with ‘Classic Football Shirts’ to film ‘Football Shirt Shopping’ where he invites famous guests into the CFS store to spend £500 on anything they desire. The series quickly became a hit with videos hitting on average between 250,000 – 500,000 views. Guests have included fellow YouTubers ChrisMD, and JaackMaate, whilst most recently the list has included high-profile figures in football from Italian International Giorgio Chiellini and world-class agent Fabrizio Romano. “It’s the biggest football shirt series on YouTube.”

“Over the last year, I’ve hit a crossroads where people want to see me get excited about football shirts. The channel is at a level where I can obtain any shirt that I desire. That takes the enjoyment out of it because I can just tweet about a particular shirt and somebody will probably reply. The hunt and the thrill of that then is gone.” Ellis highlights his enjoyment of presenting ‘Football Shirt Shopping.’ “That’s where I want to take the shirt content going forward.”

“Looking back at when I first start- ed out, the media landscape was a lot different back then. YouTube was around but it wasn’t a career option. I wanted to work in more traditional media like TV but fast forward to now and YouTube is becoming just as big as traditional media if not even bigger. The goal was to work in sports pre- senting which invertedly, I have achieved via YouTube.”

With his channel set to hit its 10th birthday this summer, Ellis recalls some of his favourite moments. “I watched a YouTube short recently of when I went to Messi’s debut at Inter Miami. To the left I had Messi’s family and to the right I had Beckham’s. I still can’t fathom it. In YouTube you can easily get stuck in a hamster wheel of amazing things happening, but then you have to instantly focus on making another great thing because you don’t want your channel to die. So you don’t have time to saviour things. It's not until you step back to take things in, that you realise what content you've created."

“Meeting David Beckham was an exciting opportunity. He’s a national hero. I didn’t actually find out about the shoot until two days beforehand.” Ellis presented a ‘Career with...’ episode on Classic Football Shirt’s YouTube channel where he spoke to Beckham about the shirts he wore throughout his career, as well as the process behind designing shirts for Inter Miami, the MLS club he owns.

‘AwayDays’ has taken Ellis all across the world, from Argen- tina to Scotland, San Marino to Hungary. Ellis tells us which place was his favourite. “Every experience is so different. Japan was probably the best place I’ve been to. The culture over there is so respectful – it was so unique. European clubs are quite similar to one another because football is so dominant in the continent. The best game I’ve been to was the Euros 2021 at Wembley. The England vs Germany (2-0 win for England in Round of 16) was incredible; the rush of emotions with fans only just being allowed back into stadiums. I think for me football is about moments. Winning against Germany was a big moment. The tournament didn’t end how we’d have hoped for, but I will be going to Germany this summer where hopefully things end a bit better for us!”

“I feel very privileged to be in the position I’m in. It’s very cliché but I come from a working class family in Norfolk, things like this aren’t supposed to happen. That’s why YouTube is so great because it can give anyone an opportunity to build a platform and make it big. The career I’ve been able to do, I’m ridiculously proud of because it’s something that shouldn’t really be happen- ing. It’s very unorthodox.”

Ellis draws out his plans for the future. “For me, I feel like AwayDays has peaked now. I’d like to do more presenting work, and doing that full-time would be the dream. The channel has allowed me the opportunities to do presenting work on various platforms. I’m about to go onto Sky Sports in a few weeks to be a part of ‘Soccer Saturday Social.’