Cricket footage archive

[neville cardus]

Note to mods: This is not about sharing copyrighted material. It's about preserving it.

Since discovering a couple of years ago, to my unspeakable horror, that no-one else was doing this, I've been religiously recording every ball I can of every Test Match, in a bid to preserve footage that might otherwise be lost. One day, when my archive is big enough and impressive enough, I'll be approaching the MCC Library, or some other such responsible party, in order that the project may be undertaken in a more professional, above-board sort of way.

I've lately, through an unavoidable personal circumstance, found this more difficult, and would be grateful for some help, if anyone is keen to volunteer. Please DM me. Again, I'm not proposing that this material be shared illicitly on the internet. I'm just anxious that it be recorded and saved.

 

[Gnske]

How are you storing it all out of curiosity? Robelinda said in the past his flat was like a hoarder's nightmare of tapes and CDs, but given we're digital it needn't be that drastic.

 

[neville cardus]

How are you storing it all out of curiosity? Robelinda said in the past his flat was like a hoarder's nightmare of tapes and CDs, but given we're digital it needn't be that drastic.

A day's play is only around 3 GB, and I've plenty of real estate on my 2 TB hard drives. It's not costly or space-consuming at all.

How does one get in touch with Robelinda? I've tried him on Twitter, with no luck.

 

[Daemon]

Note to mods: This is not about sharing copyrighted material. It's about preserving it.

Since discovering a couple of years ago, to my unspeakable horror, that no-one else was doing this, I've been religiously recording every ball I can of every Test Match, in a bid to preserve footage that might otherwise be lost. One day, when my archive is big enough and impressive enough, I'll be approaching the MCC Library, or some other such responsible party, in order that the project may be undertaken in a more professional, above-board sort of way.

I've lately, through an unavoidable personal circumstance, found this more difficult, and would be grateful for some help, if anyone is keen to volunteer. Please DM me. Again, I'm not proposing that this material be shared illicitly on the internet. I'm just anxious that it be recorded and saved.

How did you discover this?

 

[neville cardus]

How did you discover this?

I asked David Frith. Don't be a bore.

 

[honestbharani]

A day's play is only around 3 GB, and I've plenty of real estate on my 2 TB hard drives. It's not costly or space-consuming at all.

How does one get in touch with Robelinda? I've tried him on Twitter, with no luck.

Try IMing him on facebook?

 

[robelinda]

Im here! I have most tests ball by ball still, from late 80's to present. Its an enormous continuous undertaking, but getting easier with huge external hard drives now not only existing, but being affordable, bought a 10TB drive for $250 just yesterday. Still have over 25,000 dvd's yet to be converted digitally, but i slowly get through them, cant see a light at the end of the tunnel yet though!!!

 

[Immenso]

Im here! I have most tests ball by ball still, from late 80's to present. Its an enormous continuous undertaking, but getting easier with huge external hard drives now not only existing, but being affordable, bought a 10TB drive for $250 just yesterday. Still have over 25,000 dvd's yet to be converted digitally, but i slowly get through them, cant see a light at the end of the tunnel yet though!!!

Wow! 25k DVDs, that's incredible.

 

[Pratters]

I have been wondering about older matches.. which matches have news video clippings, only highlights and which were broadcast ball by ball but we don't know whether footage exists or is lost.

For example, India tour of West Indies 1971 was it broadcast in a) Windies b) India. Was the broadcast ball by ball .. I cant find any footage. What about 1986 Tied test.. I see some vidoes of highlights and a documentary on youtube. Was the match broadcast ball by ball and is any footage recorded for that.

It would be interesting to understand the history of the video for cricket matches and what exists and what has been lost ..

 

[NotMcKenzie]

1971 appears to have been still the newsreel era in India as far as cricket went (although television began there in 1959), and I don't know whether or not any broadcasts were made: the earliest I've seen on youtube are from 1978, IIRC. Similarly, in Australia, the ABC made newreel-style highlights (and I'd suspect the Indian ones were by the state media as well), but live broadcasts were made but have been lost: The earliest ball-by-ball footage I've seen from Australia is from West Indies tour of 1968/69. The ABC has lost later footage: there doesn't seem to be anything of the 1st of the last test in 74/75 for example, nor much of the entire West Indies tour the following season. Network 0/10 also made broadcasts in the 1970s, drawing from the same footage as the ABC, and one can find some of this in places. The highlights package of the 4th test in 74/75 Rob Moody uploaded appears to come from two different broadcasts.

For a long time, the West Indies appear to have had no proper television broadcasts of cricket even into the 80s, though I suspect this varies between country. The earliest television I've seen is from England's tour in 1967/68, and is a BBC production. A doco has a brief glimpse of Aus there in 72/73 which looks like a film, and footage from 77/78 is 'home-movie'-style film: some of this his held by Reuters, but there are portions missing and IDK whether they are held elsewhere.

The 1986 tied test was broadcast as that is where the highlights were taken from, but I can't say whether the whole broadcast survives. As another example, highlights for 1986/87 Ashes I've seen are heavily edited to only show certain performances, and I don't know if 9 would hold the rest of the footage still.

I've often wondered the same sort of things about newsreels: they are often edited to 'cut around' action rather than show it: that of England's disastrous innings at the Oval in 1948 shows the batsmen walking off without showing the dismissals themselves. Pathé newsreels often will show a picture of the bowler running in and then cut straight to the batsmen walking off with his stumps broken, sometimes with a shot of the crowd or a fielder in between: is the footage of the actual dismissal still extant? Movietone holds long unedited videos of play in the 58/59 ashes, but I've yet to see a single complete newsreel from that series. The ABC film highlights often don't included various dismissals in favour of showing 1s and 2s, and the same questions apply. I've not seen Lock's single wicket from Laker's match either.

Going further back, the first sound newsreels (ca. 1930) of cricket had ball-by-ball commentary recorded during play rather than the more familiar narration, and one would have assumed one would get quite a lot of unused footage in making a 2- or 3-minute newsreel. I suspect it has all gone simply to free up space if anything, but one can hope something is lying round somewhere. Certainly the BFI seems to hold a lot of footage it is not making available, and the BBC a bit as well.

 

[Red]

There's a DVD called The Cricket Archives. Jack Egan talks about how a lot of early footage was just taped over, thrown out or burnt.

I guess space was premium and recorded stuff took up a lot of space back then.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

It's not just cricket: that's called the history of film and television

 

[Burgey]

1971 appears to have been still the newsreel era in India as far as cricket went (although television began there in 1959), and I don't know whether or not any broadcasts were made: the earliest I've seen on youtube are from 1978, IIRC. Similarly, in Australia, the ABC made newreel-style highlights (and I'd suspect the Indian ones were by the state media as well), but live broadcasts were made but have been lost: The earliest ball-by-ball footage I've seen from Australia is from West Indies tour of 1968/69. The ABC has lost later footage: there doesn't seem to be anything of the 1st of the last test in 74/75 for example, nor much of the entire West Indies tour the following season. Network 0/10 also made broadcasts in the 1970s, drawing from the same footage as the ABC, and one can find some of this in places. The highlights package of the 4th test in 74/75 Rob Moody uploaded appears to come from two different broadcasts.

For a long time, the West Indies appear to have had no proper television broadcasts of cricket even into the 80s, though I suspect this varies between country. The earliest television I've seen is from England's tour in 1967/68, and is a BBC production. A doco has a brief glimpse of Aus there in 72/73 which looks like a film, and footage from 77/78 is 'home-movie'-style film: some of this his held by Reuters, but there are portions missing and IDK whether they are held elsewhere.

The 1986 tied test was broadcast as that is where the highlights were taken from, but I can't say whether the whole broadcast survives. As another example, highlights for 1986/87 Ashes I've seen are heavily edited to only show certain performances, and I don't know if 9 would hold the rest of the footage still.

I've often wondered the same sort of things about newsreels: they are often edited to 'cut around' action rather than show it: that of England's disastrous innings at the Oval in 1948 shows the batsmen walking off without showing the dismissals themselves. Pathé newsreels often will show a picture of the bowler running in and then cut straight to the batsmen walking off with his stumps broken, sometimes with a shot of the crowd or a fielder in between: is the footage of the actual dismissal still extant? Movietone holds long unedited videos of play in the 58/59 ashes, but I've yet to see a single complete newsreel from that series. The ABC film highlights often don't included various dismissals in favour of showing 1s and 2s, and the same questions apply. I've not seen Lock's single wicket from Laker's match either.

Going further back, the first sound newsreels (ca. 1930) of cricket had ball-by-ball commentary recorded during play rather than the more familiar narration, and one would have assumed one would get quite a lot of unused footage in making a 2- or 3-minute newsreel. I suspect it has all gone simply to free up space if anything, but one can hope something is lying round somewhere. Certainly the BFI seems to hold a lot of footage it is not making available, and the BBC a bit as well.

I understand a lot of ABC footage pre-1977 was destroyed in a flood at the archive many years ago.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

That's what I've heard (Rob Moody's comments); there is some we mightn't have seen though just because though. Pathé/Reuters also has short highlights of some of the matches in 75/76, for example.

 

[neville cardus]

Im here! I have most tests ball by ball still, from late 80's to present. Its an enormous continuous undertaking, but getting easier with huge external hard drives now not only existing, but being affordable, bought a 10TB drive for $250 just yesterday. Still have over 25,000 dvd's yet to be converted digitally, but i slowly get through them, cant see a light at the end of the tunnel yet though!!!

That's great to hear! Hope you're doing the present SA/Eng Test? I'm going to be in the SABC studios from tomorrow, helping out with the radio coverage. Would be a weight off my mind to know that someone had my back. :-)

 

[arslanmajid]

I have been wondering about older matches.. which matches have news video clippings, only highlights and which were broadcast ball by ball but we don't know whether footage exists or is lost.

For example, India tour of West Indies 1971 was it broadcast in a) Windies b) India. Was the broadcast ball by ball .. I cant find any footage. What about 1986 Tied test.. I see some vidoes of highlights and a documentary on youtube. Was the match broadcast ball by ball and is any footage recorded for that.

It would be interesting to understand the history of the video for cricket matches and what exists and what has been lost ..

WOW while I was doing some research

Tied Test was televised. Ball by ball and doordarshan highlights We have it covered. We means myself and a couple of old timers.It's a matter of time someone uploads on youtube.

Got in touch with a couple of nice people having tons of cricket recordings. For Example Pakistan England 1987 Test Series full coverage. And then matter of Indra Ghandi coverage when India Players had to leave an cut the tour short. Extremely rare stuff. Exciting times are coming ahead.

 

[arslanmajid]

That's great to hear! Hope you're doing the present SA/Eng Test? I'm going to be in the SABC studios from tomorrow, helping out with the radio coverage. Would be a weight off my mind to know that someone had my back. :-)

SABC pain in the ass. Hard to obtain when one is very far. Still got some Mandella Cup Matches ,South Africa Pakistan 1995 Test,South Africa New Zealand 1994 Tests, South Africa Australia 1994 Tests, Zimbabwe South Africa 1995 Test and ODIS to name a few.

 

[neville cardus]

Tied Test was televised. Ball by ball and doordarshan highlights We have it covered. We means myself and a couple of old timers.It's a matter of time someone uploads on youtube.

Why don't you upload it? If not, I'd be happy to.

 

[arslanmajid]

Why don't you upload it? If not, I'd be happy to.

May be one day