Jason Mohammad meets childhood football hero, Bluebirds legend Dave Bennett

TV and radio presenter Jason Mohammad says that meeting his childhood football hero as part of an S4C programme is the most emotional he’s ever been in front of a camera.

He met Cardiff City footballer Dave Bennett as part of the Taith Bywyd (Life Journey) series that will be broadcast on S4C on Sunday January 21 at 21:00.

In the programme, presented by Owain Williams, Jason Mohammad is taken on a journey to meet the people who changed his life and those who influenced his career.

Bluebirds

Dave and his brother Gary played for the Bluebirds in the early 1980s and Jason Mohammad credits them as the reason he fell in love with football and Cardiff City FC.

Jason Mohammad says that the experience of meeting Dave Bennett made him feel like a young boy again:

“This has been an incredible experience – this is perhaps the most overwhelmed I’ve been on telly. I feel like the 8-year-old boy – sat here next to my first footballing idol.”

“That’s why I’m proud of this football club, it doesn’t matter what background you’re from, once these boys put on the blue shirt – bluebirds forever!”

“This football club runs through my very soul. When people say, ‘who’s the first footballer you can remember watching and loving’, it was Dave Bennett.

“Shoot magazine and Match magazine did a feature on Dave, and I cut out the picture and stuck it up on my wall in my house in Ely. Had it not been for what Dave did, and what that team in ’82, ’83 did at Cardiff City, I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing now – genuinely. I wouldn’t be the sports broadcaster I don’t think, if I hadn’t fallen in love with Cardiff City Football Club in 1982.”

Breaking barriers

During this period Dave Bennett and his brother Gary were the only Black players that played for the club.

Dave explains that Black players were treated differently: “It was very difficult for Black players at the time…if you weren’t doing well, you got to know about it…They let me know about it a little bit more than say, the average white guy.

“But we didn’t realise what we were doing with breaking down barriers. It has come a long way but there’s still a long way to go.”

Others taking part in the series are influencer and presenter Jess Davies, musician, guitarist and S4C cycling pundit Peredur ap Gwynedd, and former Member of Parliament and campaigner Sian James.

Each one will meet individuals who have been there through the good days and the difficult times. But none of them know who they’ll meet, or where they’re going next.

Previous episodes of the series with football manager Osian Roberts and actor Sian Reese-Williams are available on demand on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer.