Living with Lions

[Arthur Guinness]

Programme on Sky Sports 1 tonight at 10.00. About the 1997 Lions-Woody,P Wallace,Miller etc. Part 1 was on last night and was interesting. Tonight's show is on the 3 tests from that tour.

[Tobyglen]

Class show. The best documentary around.

[chimpy_jr]

Cannot wait to hear Telfurs speech to the forwards again...


In fact I dont think I will...here is the link below...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3S6iGmUjI


No matter how many times I hear it it makes the hair stand on the back of my neck...savage stuff

[Cabbage]

Does anyone have a link to Mcgeechan's (I think)speech from one of the test matches - about guys looking themselves in the eye 25 years down the line - and there'd just be a look?

Can't find it on youtube

[BristolRed]

I downloaded the whole thing a few weeks back from mininova or
diwana.. can't remember which!

Great Watch!

[anthonyk]

Best sports Documentary ever. Remember seeing it a few months after 97 tour on sky. Telfur speechs and when he is talking to him self while arranging the meeting rooms are fantastic.

[Fresh Start]

Good bit where Wainwright said he reckoned Telfer would just drop dead on a training pitch - half joking but came across also in an odd way as a real sign of respect they had for him.

[A7X07]

Anyone know if any shops in town have this on dvd? According to a few websites a special addition was released on the 25th of may. I tried HMV, Empire and one or two more shops but no luck.

[hucker rucker]

I bought it on amazon, I've seen it before but not in its entirety. It cost about €15 incl P&P

[DonL]

Anyone know if any shops in town have this on dvd? According to a few websites a special addition was released on the 25th of may. I tried HMV, Empire and one or two more shops but no luck.


I also got it on Amazon. Didn't come across any shops stocking it, and I tried a lot. DVD arrived 2 days ago. Special addition includes a schedule poster for the coming tour. Don't know yet what else the special edition includes. The main DVD is 4 hours long. Lots of watching to be done.

[A7X07]

Anyone know if any shops in town have this on dvd? According to a few websites a special addition was released on the 25th of may. I tried HMV, Empire and one or two more shops but no luck.


I also got it on Amazon. Didn't come across any shops stocking it, and I tried a lot. DVD arrived 2 days ago. Special addition includes a schedule poster for the coming tour. Don't know yet what else the special edition includes. The main DVD is 4 hours long. Lots of watching to be done.

Excellent cheers. I'll purchase it online so. Suprised with the tour starting that most shops weren't stocked with it.

[Danno]

it was on ESPN classic over Easter

[randysavage]

I downloaded the whole thing a few weeks back from mininova or
diwana.. can't remember which!

Great Watch!





Good Call, thanks BR.


I' haven't seen it in ages.


I've never used mininova but I'll sign up to get this.

[LeakyBoots]

Bought it and a disc on the Invincibles for 30e all in on amazon... can't wait smileys/biggrin.gif

[anthonyk]

Got my copy on play.com. Few years ago now but give it a try.

[Kingfisher234]

Its regularly shown on ESPn in five episodes ... have watched it at least 10 times... I think Bentley made it tbh with the hand held home cinema bits ..... really allowed us to get to see the behind the scenes messing that went on ... really hope the present tour video has a similar input ....obviously helped that they won the series as well. The 05 video was too manufactured and edited (like everything on that tour).


The motto for the 09 Lions should be "Earnest endeavour/Entertaining Enjoyment".

[lahinch_lass]

1974 - invincibles is on again tonight - SS3

[anthonyk]

What channel is ss3 lass.

[NeilBestisalegend]

sky sports 3

[Windeos]

For anyone interested in this, you can download the whole documentary (2hours 50mins odd) here:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2410978


Enjoy

[anthonyk]

Living with lions on tonight on Espn classic. Channel 442 on sky. On at 9.45

[No Bother]

Living with lions on tonight on Espn classic. Channel 442 on sky. On at 9.45 Think its part 2 caught the end of part one last night while channel flicking. If its part 2 its a good watch, Woody on court duty very funny

[anthonyk]

Ya woody getting all the pills from the doc was mad.

[Hopelessly Devoted]

<S&#079;NG>Living with the Lions legends of 1997

</S&#079;NG>Nick Greenslade

'A truly amazing video. It encapsulates something no other sports video has managed to do because it captures the real feeling and the passion of the tour — it’s something everyone can relate to. It’s a great title because even 12 years on if I put it on I’m immediately right there Living with the 1997 Lions. It’s just as if it were yesterday.’

Ian McGeechan, May 2009

Fran Cotton had a problem. As manager of the first professional Lions squad, it was his responsibility to ensure that the 1997 tour to South Africa returned a profit. Sky had already paid up for the broadcasting rights and Scottish Provident were on board as sponsors but there was still work to do. This would be, after all, a tour on a financial scale no northern hemisphere team had ever undertaken. For the first time, players, coaches and other personnel would be paid. They would also require first-class transport and accommodation. Every pound of income was therefore vital.

Enter John Taylor. In the spring of 1997, the former Wales international approached Cotton about making a behind-the-scenes documentary of the forthcoming tour. Reality television was still something of a niche format back then, although it was sport that had first revealed the risks that came with it. In 1993, cameras went in to the England football camp to record what turned out to be the faltering end to the team’s World Cup qualification hopes. When ‘The Impossible Job’ hit the screens, manager Graham Taylor’s witless repetition of the phrase, ‘Do I not like that’, left him looking more absurd than any tabloid headlines about turnips and ‘Norse manure’ had managed. His reputation never recovered.

John Taylor, who had toured South Africa with the Lions in 1968, appreciated this and sounded a warning to Cotton: “I said to Fran early on, ‘You realise, of course, if this thing goes belly-up then you can’t suddenly shut us out, tell us what we can and can’t film’. Fran acknowledged that and I do believe that if the tour had fallen apart that he would have been true to his word.”

The deal was done and Taylor and his associates handed over £40,000 of their own money for the rights. The tour did not fall apart and the subsequent film, Living with Lions, remains, as McGeechan says, one of the best sports documentaries ever made. Gavin Henson was 15 when it was released. “Rugby came into its own with the videotape of that trip,” the Welshman said last year. “It came out and you saw a different side of it. It was inspirational ... it made you want to play.” Paul O’Connell, captain of this summer’s return tour to South Africa, said something similar in 2005: “Lions tours vividly came to life for me when I was a lad watching the Living with Lions video from the 1997 tour. Legends emerged from that tour.”

Looking back on it now, from an era in which players invariably edit out from their public discourse anything that might hint at controversy or colour, or have that done for them by watchful press officers and agents, the access and co-operation that the film crew were granted remains staggering. Coaches Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer never once raised an objection to being miked up. Cameras were in the dressing room before, during and after all of the Tests and the players appear blithe to their presence.

As a result, we see the training-ground brawl between rival Lions hookers Barry Williams and Mark Regan; the Test team psyching themselves up in the minutes before going out to face the Springboks (complete with the sound of Ieuan Evans and Neil Jenkins retching in the toilets); and Will Greenwood’s anguished mother (“Oh William! What have you done?”) as the player struggles to come round in the medics’ room after a horrific head injury against the Free State.

The action on the pitch is almost a sideshow. In the words of another Irish player on this year’s trip, Rob Kearney, “I’ve always admired the [Li

[Viigand]

Took this out last evening and watched it again..fantastic documentary.

[LeakyBoots]

I've ordered this and the one about the Invincibles from Amazon for 28e all in, arriving tomorrow... perfect for getting in gear for the opening test! Can't wait! smileys/biggrin.gif