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Inspired by a film-mad
Uncle (who incidentally was responsible for the cartoon on our Home Page), the Hughes brothers were perhaps destined to record
some of Edmonton Rovers matches for posterity providing the club could survive
long enough while they saved up the money to purchase some sort of camera.
Thankfully, the successful 1979-80 season came to the rescue and it was during
this campaign that the first-ever recorded footage of an Edmonton Rovers match
was captured on Cine-Film.
The match in
question was a fairly routine Edmonton Sunday League Division 8 fixture against
St. Pauls Church at Montague Rec. in Edmonton on the 4th November 1979, but as Laurence Hughes was forced
into acting as a stand-in goalkeeper in that match, it was Trevor Hughes who
actually filmed the footage. However, none of it captured his brother letting in
a silly goal from the half-way line (sailed over his head !) or dropping
numerous crosses as all the footage consisted of was about a minute's worth of
out-of-focus grass or sky !
Subsequent
matches therefore saw Laurence Hughes 'have a go' and he proved to be a bit more
adept, although Trevor gradually improved as the season went on and some great
action was captured, including Kieran Mc,Gregor's 'famous' last-minute equaliser
in the Weekly Herald Cup Final at a 'packed' Barrass Stadium !
However,
having to set up a projector to view these silent and often poor-quality
cine-films was a real 'pain' and the idea was abandoned at the start of the
following season, especially with the 'B' Team starting up and the Hughes
brothers having to play more often.
Although
Rovers did have their Edmonton Sunday League Intermediate Cup Final defeat
against Craig Park Centre in 1982 captured (rather poorly) on video by
midfielder Terry Clark's uncle, it was really the advent of the
first-ever
Camcorder in 1985 that re-kindled the Hughes brothers' enthusiasm as here was
something far more convenient - small VHS-C tapes which you just put in an
adaptor and played on one of those 'new-fangled' VCR's which had just come on
the market at the time - brilliant !
As
it was Trevor Hughes who actually paid for this Camcorder (a
'shoulder-mounted' JVC GRC-1 model), he started doing most of the filming
as Rovers tested the Camcorder out for the first time in a Pre-Season Friendly
against an Anglo-Italian team, F.C. Martini in Northwood, Middlesex on Sunday
18th August 1985. However, at least 5 others 'had a go' that day, including
Laurence Hughes, as the Camcorder was 'passed around' as a gimmick and that was
basically how it was used for the next 4 seasons with various club members
taking it in turns to film 'bits & pieces' of matches (but not every match),
just 'releasing the pause button whenever the ball got near the goal' !
More
often than not it was Laurence Hughes doing the filming though as he was
the most competent cameraman and after getting a few enquiries from opposing
teams as to whether they could buy a copy of the footage, he decided to leave
his job at W.H.Smith in February 1990 and start his own Company, Hughes Video
Services, with the aim of specialising in filming Amateur &
Semi-Professional Football Matches, which of course included filming every
Edmonton Rovers match...Properly !
That
saw Hughes purchase a Sharp S-VHS-C Camcorder, which had a far better picture
than Trevor Hughes's now antiquated JVC model and this was 'tested out' in
(unfortunately) a goal-less draw against Skidmore ('Skidmark') Athletic at
Presdales in Ware on Sunday 11th February 1990. Having got in some practice
then, Hughes used the following week's fixture (ironically against Skidmore
again) as his first-ever professionally-filmed match, using a tripod, filming
the whole game and editing the footage afterwards to include slow-motion replays
and titles and since then he has never looked back, going on to film hundreds of
Rovers matches with an ever-improving quality and only missing a handful of
matches throughout the last 16 years when he has had to play because of injuries
or players not turning up.
Compilation
videos of each Rovers season since 1990/91 (with a narration by Laurence Hughes)
have been produced ever since, along with 'Out-Takes' (strictly for Club Members
only !) & Goal of the Season videos for viewing at the club's A.G.M.'s.
On
producing the very first Compilation at the end of the 1990/91 season,
Laurence Hughes embarked on a 'media campaign' which initially saw the club
featured in several local newspaper articles before they got their first T.V.
exposure in 1991 when Danny Baker
hosted a programme ('The Game') on ITV
featuring primarily the East London Sunday League, but also showing clips
of 'humorous' incidents captured on video at Sunday League matches all over the
Country. Naturally, Hughes sent in several, but it was footage of a shot from
Julien Nurse hitting the crossbar from 50 yards (at Home to Botany Bay) that
really put Rovers 'on the map' as far as 'National Fame' was concerned as it
finished in 'Second Place' in their 'Video Clip of the Series !
On
the back of that, Hughes put some of the Compilations on sale in Sportspages in
the Charing Cross Road, where a copy was bought by a Producer from BBC
Radio 5's 'Sunday Brunch' programme. On
hearing Hughes's 'comical' narration on the video, the Sunday Brunch programme
therefore decided to have the club as a regular feature on their show which went
out live and co-incided neatly with Rovers arrival at the Stag & Hounds Pub
after their match in the morning. This saw presenter Mariella
Frostrup phoning the Stag & Hounds
every Sunday to get a 'Match Report' from Laurence Hughes and interview some
players, which on one occasion included a seriously-drunken 'Willie' Platt, who
'spoilt' what was supposed to be a 'highbrow' Arts programme with a 'Charlie
Drake impersonation' in trying to chat up one of the most famous and glamorous
media personalities in Britain !
Nevertheless,
'Sunday Brunch' continued featuring Rovers for a couple of seasons in the
early-90's until the show was axed to make way for BBC Radio 5 Live, but even better
publicity was to come Rovers way in September 1994 when Sky Sports 2's ' Sunday morning 'Soccer
Extra' show started a 'Sunday
League Soccer' feature in which a 'spoof'
commentary (by their own 'Steve & Jonty') was dubbed on to video footage
sent in by Sunday League clubs. Fortunately, Laurence Hughes happened to be
watching the programme at the time the request for footage was made, so he
immediately sent them a copy of Rovers impressive 9-2 victory over Old Star
Rangers and this ended up being the first match shown on the feature and
subsequently being given a real 'plug' with a full 10 minutes highlights being
shown, together with live telephone interviews with Laurence Hughes and the Old
Star Rangers Manager.
This
was to start an amazing run of 'fame' as for the next five
years, Rovers match videos were
consistently shown on the programme every three or four weeks on average and
with the show rapidly attaining 'cult' status (especially when it switched to Saturday
mornings to become 'Soccer A.M.'),
Rovers became so 'famous' that players such as Conor Mc,Govern even found
himself being recognised by strangers as a result ! Indeed whenever
Rovers played a match in their distinctive All Green kit, numerous people
(mainly kids) involved in other matches would turn around and shout 'Oh
look, it's Edmonton Rovers' and then wave to the camera ('trying to get on Sky')
while 'almost asking our players for their autographs' !?
However,
all good things have to come to an end and the 'Sunday League Soccer'
feature finished in 1999 when 'Steve & Jonty' moved onto other
things, so the next step for Rovers videos was then the Internet and
having clips shown on this website on a regular basis since it's launch
in August 2000.
In 2003, Laurence Hughes started producing DVD's of matches as well as
videos, and further improvements, publicity and innovations will almost
certainly continue to happen in the future. |
