Trawling the World Cup archive
| 17:04 UK time, Thursday, 18 May 2006
What鈥檚 your favourite World Cup moment? Football鈥檚 showpiece is full of iconic images: , , ,
And then, of course, there is Jimmy Hill鈥檚 Christmas tree.
Not to be confused with the tactical masterplan of Hill鈥檚 old sparring partner Terry Venables, this is in fact the moment that kicked off 大象传媒 TV鈥檚 review of the 1982 World Cup in Spain. The half-hour show opened with a stereotypical 鈥80s title sequence, then mixed to a Christmas tree, before the camera panned across to reveal Our Jimmy, sitting resplendent in trademark beard, lemon-coloured polo neck and brown slacks. Think meets and you won't be far off.
It鈥檚 a televisual gem guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of football fans of a certain age. And I only know about it because I stumbled across it while checking out some of the footage in a new of classic World Cup action that we launched on the website this week.
Once you start looking at this kind of archive programming, it soon becomes addictive, as you notice how football has changed over the decades 鈥 and how TV production and commentary styles have changed with it.
Being able to offer this rich footage to our audience at their convenience is one of the great benefits of the 鈥渙n-demand world鈥 that the media industry is moving swiftly towards. But as ever when it comes to sports video on the internet, the tricky territory of rights is never far away.
And on this subject, there are two points to mention about our video archive.
Firstly, we only have the rights to show it to a UK audience. If you鈥檙e accessing our site from overseas you won鈥檛 be able to watch this classic action.
And secondly, the rights agreement covers all World Cups up to and including 1998. This means you won鈥檛 see anything from 2002, I鈥檓 afraid.
But hopefully there鈥檚 still more than enough to enjoy, if you鈥檝e got a spare few days to watch everything on offer.
And if you find a forgotten moment that's as good as Jimmy鈥檚 jumper, I鈥檇 be very keen to hear about it鈥
