Bringing history back to life

Ian Botham's Ashes heroics from 1981 have been filling the airwaves in recent months © Getty Images

If watching the live action Down Under this winter is already proving too much for England supporters they can always relive some happier days by switching over to ESPN Classic, the young channel that sprung up earlier this year filled with archive sporting action from over the decades. Football, rugby and boxing are all heavily featured, but a large proportion of programming time is devoted to bringing alive years of BBC cricket footage.

At the outset a former Olympic skier and Ian Botham's heroics from 1981 don't seem to have much in common, but Konrad Bartelski, who competed at three Winter Olympics, is at the centre of the operation to bring reams of sporting action out of mothballs. The build-up to this year's Ashes re-match gave them an obvious starting block, and the timeless tones of Richie Benaud - "It's into the confectionary and out again" - have been a welcome addition to the more gladiatorial Ashes hype doing the rounds.

"It's about giving the viewers the chance to see how sport was shaped and an insight into those who shaped it," said Bartelski. "There is so much pressure to show live sport but ESPN Classic has the chance to tell the story behind what happened in the past and about the figures who made sport."

ESPN has managed to gain use of a large proportion of BBC's archives, so far using footage from as far back as the mid 1960s, although most of the programming focuses on the 70s and 80s. Despite the number of sports channels and quantity of footage churned out, ESPN has managed to find a gap in the UK market with their Classic channel. Sky Sports have hours of highlights - just witness any rained-off one-day international - but it only extends back as far as the 90s.

It is incredible to watch the likes of Imran Khan and then you get the great West Indies side of the 80s and Viv Richards. It is cricket in its purest form Konrad Bartelski on his passion for watching the archives

"ESPN Classic has been operating in the US for 10 years and then we branched out into France, Italy then the rest of Europe," Bartelski explained. "We knew BBC had huge depth of material and were keen to access it. Our acquisition team have spent many hours working on it and in June we signed a deal and started broadcasting in July. Cricket was always going to be one of our big markets because of the sheer quantity of programming it produced, but also because of the incredible quality of the archive material."

Bartelski also speaks with a real passion about being able to see some of the great players from the past. "It is incredible to watch the likes of Imran Khan, and then you get the great West Indies side of the 80s and Viv Richards. It's cricket in its purest form, played how it's meant to be."

There has never been a better time to get involved in cricket, but it would be wrong to see this as another example of jumping on the bandwagon. ESPN has plans beyond the winter and is investing in bespoke programming to supplement their highlights. "We will be concentrating a lot on World Cup archives ahead of the Caribbean. One of our guys has just got back from Barbados where he interviewed Gordon Greenidge and he will form a large part of our programming, which starts in March, based on highlights from the first three World Cups. They are all pieces of history."

So why, with all this material at their disposal, did the BBC not jump at the idea of showing their own material? They have, after all, received heavy criticism for their departure from cricket. Bartelski reveals it was once on the cards, but is quite happy that ESPN can take up the slack.

Gordon Greenidge will feature heavily in ESPN's programmes ahead of the World Cup © Getty Images

"There were plans afoot at the BBC for an archive channel but it didn't happen for some reason. The market place changed and there was a demand for live sport with the explosion of digital TV and mobile technology. With our 10 years of experience in the US, ESPN Classic was able to come into Europe and take up a part of the market that was largely vacant."

However, it is by no means a perfect product. It is often difficult to know which matches are being screened when and days' play are shown out of sequence, although Bartelski says this is partly down the way they acquired the material. "Our first thought was show certain days from certain series, but then viewers started to say they wanted to see the whole action. We are working on it and hopefully we are getting better. Our cricket producer came out with similar observations about the broken nature of the highlights and we are continuously trying to provide what people want."

There are significant plans ahead for the future, both short and medium term. Christmas and New Year's Day are going to be heaven for cricket fans as the channel devotes their whole schedule to Anglo-Australian rivalry. From 5am on Christmas morning highlights of the 1997 Ashes will be mixed with episodes of Cricket Legends (England fans may want to eat their turkey during the Old Trafford, Headingley and Trent Bridge matches), while this will then be followed by the 1993 series, possibly a cue to start drinking some of those presents.

New Year's Day includes Botham's Ashes again - but you can never watch it too many times - including some full-length footage. All this should act as the perfect warm-up to the Melbourne and Sydney clashes from Down Under, although if the Gabba has been anything to go by it's probably best sticking to the good old days.

To find out what is showing on ESPN Classic (which can be seen on Sky channel 442) click here

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