FIVE TO SCREEN TWI?s 1966 WORLD CUP DOCUMENTARY

April 24th 2006, London: TWI has been commissioned by Five to produce a television documentary about England?s extraordinary journey towards victory in the 1966 World Cup. The one-hour documentary, which falls within Five’s historical ‘Revealed’ strand, will bring England’s triumph to life, in a way that most people never saw it at the time – in glorious colour.

This programme will use amazing archive footage along with exclusive interviews with all ten surviving members of the original team to illustrate England’s journey from the preparation and opening draw against Uruguay to the epic battle with West Germany at Wembley. "How England Won The World Cup" will be narrated by Sharpe Star Sean Bean.

Sir Bobby Charlton said, “We won because we were a great team, we were a perfect blend, we had the right manager and we had the desire to win it.”

TWI, an IMG Media company, has also produced a DVD of the programme with various added extras including exclusive extended interview footage with the remaining players. The DVD will be released on 5th June by Prism Leisure.

"How England Won The World Cup" is Executive Produced by TWI’s Simon Birri and is Directed and Produced by Kim Hogg. It was commissioned by Alex Sutherland, Controller History at Five, who said: “It's not often that sporting events can truly be said to have made history - but if ever there was such an occasion, this was it. The film is visually stunning, moving and dramatic - I'm proud to have it as part of this run of Revealeds.”

Kim Hogg of TWI said, “We've been lucky enough to tell this story with the help of those who took part. Though most of us know what happened on 30th July 1966, there's something special about hearing the words of Sir Geoff Hurst or Jack Charlton recounting their experience of stepping out onto the Wembley turf that day, unaware that in two hours later they would make history. Forty years on, the achievement of these guys is no less impressive. We have also been fortunate enough to uncover some previously unseen colour material of the final. This woven together with the reminiscences of the ten surviving World Cup Final players really does bring the tournament and its climax back to life."

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About IMG
IMG is the world's premier Sports, Entertainment and Media Company. IMG is a diversified global business with two major business segments: IMG Sports & Entertainment, and IMG Media. IMG employs over 2,300 people in 30 countries. Forstmann Little & Co. purchased IMG in 2004.

IMG Sports & Entertainment includes: consulting services; event ownership and management; fashion events and models representation; licensing; golf course design; client representation in golf, tennis, baseball, broadcasting, hockey, football, European football, rugby, cricket, motorsports, coaching, Olympic sports and action sports. In addition, IMG Academies are the world's largest and most advanced, state-of-the-art, multi-sport training and educational facility, delivering world-class sports training experiences to over 12,000 junior, collegiate, adult and professional athletes each year.

IMG Media, which includes our content production subsidiaries TWI and Darlow Smithson Productions, is recognized as a global leader in the delivery of traditional and new media content and services, with Internet, broadband and mobile expertise, transforming how audiences access and interact with content. IMG Media produces and distributes over 9,000 hours of sports, documentary, docu-drama, entertainment, and popular factual content annually, over multiple platforms across 200 countries, including award-winning television and radio programming. It also represents the broadcast rights to many of the world's premier sporting events and has the world’s biggest sports archive with more than 200,000 hours of footage.

More information about IMG is available at www.imgworld.com and www.darlowsmithson.com