I thought the scene where David Coleman interviewed him before his last ever RL commentary was very poignant, Waring was obviously struggling to put coherent sentences together by that time and he looked a very lonely figure, his incarceration into High Royds Mental Hospital (nee "Asylum"icon_wink.gif was a sad indictment of the times, when you went in there you rarely came out and it was a case of "out of sight out of mind", Care in the Community has its critics but its far better than locking people into Asylums and throwing away the key.

the 2nd documentary that was filmed in 1969 could quite easily have been made in the Super League era.

Salford talking about stadium improvements that never happened, the Wigan Chairman going on about a brown envelope full of used fivers, Featherstone being described as grim.

The Featherstone training session and team talk was a classic - "they have a lad called Ogden playing who i've never heard of. anyone know him? no? oh well, im sure he is nippy so get him tackled when he gets the ball"

Very enjoyable on the whole.

"she'll be offside"

Absolutely brilliant from start to finish, worth the licence fee alone.

Bang on there! Every coach should have "executive" cigars after a win!

"You'd be a good player if you could kick"

Thought 'the game that got away' was a brilliant documentary!

As for Eddie Waring, also a great documentary - if not a little sad at the end. Poor lad.

I was at that game. Serious attempts were made to round up the animal at various points but it was just treating it as a game, waiting til people got near, then taking off only to wait again for more people to chase it. To this day, I'm not sure which would have presented the most farcical viewing - playing on, or transmitting footage of stewards, players and police trying to round it up. Believe me, I couldn't see it being caught quickly, short of shooting it. In hindsight, this might have been the best option.

I thought the whole evenings viewing was fantastic! The Game that Got Away was bloody good. Interesting to see how Salford hasn't really changed since then; relying on the clubhouse to keep the club afloat.

I loved the Wigan bit. With the stadium in the background it looked very much like a scene from The Damned United.

I think I may well have to email the beeb and congratulate them on a job well done.

eh? the feature was on salford and developing alternative revenue streams. the footage was from inside the willows variety centre which did happen (hence the footage from inside it!!!!) and is still there and operating today. it wasnt about improving the stadium per se, but about having a viable business model that obtained income and allowed the club to continue AND invest in quality players. its not a coincidence that the expert summariser on the later game (or whatever title existed in 197icon_cool.gif was David Watkins - a player salford poached from RU (with the associtaed costs) in the period featured in the previously documentary. Salford was, still is, a soundly managed club.

They are completely separate businesses.

That may be, but the clubhouse still provides the club with revenue streams, surely.

Agreed - I actually found that quite upsetting to watch.

brilliant documentaries by the BBC i have to say, they should do more RL themed stuff,like maybe show a cup final in its entirety again?
on the eddie waring documentary, there were some moments of brilliance and humour "he's all over the place,but he's only small so he's not got far to fall" when the camera's picked up on an injured player for example, but also quite moving in the end.
i remember going to my grandparents as a little boy and hearing eddie waring on the tv but i probably remember him more doing it's a knockout,i didn't realise that he had so much resentment from rl fans though.

I'd love the BBC to make a load of the old finals available on iplayer, especially the saints bradford game of early 90s fame.

I'd be quite happy to buy them on DVD. Micron video used to sell copies of finals, I'm not sure if they still do, but they didn't seem to have a complete collection the last time I looked.

Code13 - you might find rlthisrl of use.