The last time I was sitting in the stands at Crystal Palace National Athletics Stadium, it was July 31st 1993, and I was squinting at Depeche Mode on their “Songs of Faith And Devotion” tour. The place looks very different minus all the dry ice and biker jackets.

 

There’s a rusting, Soviet feel to the stadium now. The electronic scoreboard has blown its last bulb and is spending its retirement as a retreat for battered pigeons.

 

We’re here for two days to shoot Episode 6, “Knowing Christ”. It’s based on Philippians 3:10 - 4:1, which carries some compelling athletic imagery. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

 

There was a slighly wobbly moment on Friday morning when one of our five athletes got stuck on a train somewhere between central and South East London, and the weather was grey as the Berlin Wall, but in the end we got some lovely shots courtesy of Mark Langton, the Director of Photography, and Nick Payne, his assistant.

 

And the athletes - Alex Tsoy, Mark Walley, Sam Ennis, Nathan Morgan Locke, and Stanley Njoka - did a terrific job, wrestling manfully with the cold weather and the repeated stop-start and wait of filming. There was a nice moment when we were so delighted with a shot of Sam on the running track that we forgot to say “cut”. He was practically in the car park before someone noticed.

 

I must also give a special shout out to Louisa Spicer, our first assistant director, who keeps us ticking over with great good humour, and makes sure we get the shots we need in the time we have.

 

Steve Hughes is doing a fantastic job at the helm of Discipleship Explored. It’s going to be fascinating to see the series take shape when we start editing in a few weeks’ time.

 

Not sure how much action Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium sees these days, but I did notice, scribbled in black indelible marker pen, on top of a freshly installed phone line in the men’s changing room, the word “Coldplay”.