Derbyshire club history DVD - review

The difficulty in a project of this nature, especially for a small club like Derbyshire, is fairly obvious.

The lack of film footage before 1981 effectively means that the visual input of the club's first 110 years has perforce to be a case of scanning across old postcards and cigarette cards. Plenty of pre-1939 cricket footage exists, but Derbyshire players feature in very little of it. If we'd only had a Grace, Hammond, Hobbs, Rhodes or Verity...

There are brief snippets of George Pope and Cliff Gladwin bowling for England among the Pathe news archive that can be viewed on the web, but the commercial use of such footage is very expensive and was no doubt a factor in its omission from the finished DVD. For anyone who loves to watch old cricket footage, I'd recommend their website, which can be found at:

http://www.britishpathe.com/

Sadly, no footage survives of Derbyshire's 1969 Gillette Cup Final appearance, which I watched on TV, nor of the earlier semi-final against Sussex at Chesterfield, which was also televised. The earliest footage is of the 1981 final against Northamptonshire and it is from that point that the DVD kicks into gear.

There could have been a few less 'talking heads', with some looking less comfortable in front of a camera than others. They could perhaps have been voice-overs for increased footage of more recent matches, but this is a minor quibble. It would also have benefited with some BBC footage of Alan Ward, Mike Hendrick and Dominic Cork bowling for England at different times and Eddie Barlow for the Rest of the World against us in 1970, but costs again possibly legislated against it. The only error I spotted was when the fine 1957 season was being discussed and the accompanying picture was of the side from ten years earlier, with Bill Copson, Denis Smith and Stan Worthington taking the field with their team mates. The only thing I didn't like was the jazzy music, which didn't work for me. Just my opinion...

Despite the fact that the disc was delayed until season 141, those involved have done a laudable job. If you've never undertaken this sort of project there is a lot of work involved and the club now has a digital record of a history that, while not overly successful, has seen many great characters take the field in the county colours.

Full credit to the commercial team at the club for their efforts. Within obvious budgetary constraints they have done a good job and can be proud of the finished product.