Fire in My Babycham

British TV viewers had a first chance to see acclaimed cricket documentary Fire In My Babycham on free-to-air television last week. The film, directed by Ted Dexter and executive-produced by the team responsible for Swanny's Video Diaries told the inspirational story of the period in English cricket between the mid-1980s and 1999.

From the unpromising position of being the oldest, most supported and best-funded cricket nation in the world, England doggedly managed to plunge further and further down the Test rankings to their sensational nadir of a series defeat at home to New Zealand by the end of the millennium.

The film tells the story of how the team's inspirational leader, Chris Cowdrey, turned an unlikely bunch of talented and experienced professional cricketers into a finely tuned laughing stock.

For Cowdrey, England cricket was more than a sport; it was a key factor in the burgeoning "White Consciousness" movement. For too long, the public school-educated sons of English cricketing peers had been denied their chance to represent their country, ground down under the heel of men who were actually any good at cricket. Cowdrey had had enough. Based around a fearsome battery of bowling aces like John Emburey, John Childs and David Capel, England began to be blown away with remorseless regularity.

However, although they were utterly single-minded about losing cricket matches while they were on the field, many of this group of players certainly knew how to enjoy themselves off it! For instance, by going on rebel tours to South Africa, getting arrested, causing international diplomatic incidents or blundering into tabloid stings.

One of the most remarkable factors of this team was the quality of players who failed to be left out of it. County players, some of whom had two functioning legs and a pair of cricket trousers, who in any other era would have been the last name on the teamsheet, found themselves opening the bowling in Ashes Tests or gibbering pathetically as they waited to face West Indies. Some of the footage is very painful to watch.

Sadly, like all great dynasties, England's empire of dirt crumbled in the new millennium, when many of the key players of the 1980s and 1990s took up basketball, at which they were equally hopeless, but at least it stopped them playing cricket. Today's professional and committed England side are but a faint shadow of their predecessors, but fans will be transported back to the previous generation with this film.

Rated not suitable for children, or adults.