The Milton Keynes bid to the FA to be a World Cup host city

I grew up in Milton Keynes, so it was an honour to be asked to make this film and other materials for the presentation of MK to the FA delegation. Tonally, we balanced confidence with self-deprecating humour. I was told by one of the delegates that our bid was the strongest they’d seen.  

The FA’s announcement of the ‘bid cities’ to host FIFA World Cup was national news. It fell to sports minister Brian Mawhinney to list all the expected cities with a couple of notable exceptions, Brian looked up from his notes with a wry smile, paused with great comic timing adding ‘…. and Milton Keynes!’

Our animation played behind George Alagiah throughout the following news piece. We went bananas!

Of course, it was a rotten disappointment when FIFA went with Russia and Qatar, but when the dust settled, the ‘value’ of that news story and being part of the FA bid was calculated by those who do inward investment for the city, as a very large figure!