Roy Hodgson would not have welcomed the Amazon cameras delving into the current goings on at Crystal Palace, but is looking forward to watching the ‘When Eagles Dare’ documentary next month.
It was announced on Wednesday the broadcaster would launch a new docuseries on June 4, covering the Eagles’ journey from the brink in 2010 while in administration to their Sky Bet Championship play-off triumph three years later.
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Amazon Prime Video have produced similar shows on Tottenham, Leeds and Manchester City in recent seasons and Hodgson, speaking before Saturday’s trip to Sheffield United, said: “I’m not certain (Marcelo) Bielsa, the guys at Sunderland, Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola, I don’t know how much they actually welcomed it.
“I’m certain the decision to do the documentary wouldn’t be a decision that would land on their table, it would be a decision made by the club.
“But if you want my honest opinion about would I have liked to have been a prominent figure and people seeing behind the scenes behaviour, I wouldn’t have welcomed that. That’s a purely selfish thing, of course. I prefer to do my work with a degree of privacy and not to make it all public.”
The 73-year-old has previous in this department. Back when he was in charge of Switzerland during the early 1990s, he allowed a film maker an insight into his life and received a bad review… from his wife.
Hodgson explained: “There was a quite famous film maker who decided he wanted to sort of go behind the scenes with regard to my thinking, personality and character and I accepted a dinner invitation.
“It was a dinner with him, answering questions over dinner, and my wife has never forgive me for that saying ‘it was the worst decision you ever made’.
“She didn’t think it was a good idea in the first place and she didn’t think the questions and the way I handled them was particularly good.
“And she’s normally right about those things. Actually I never watched it back because I wasn’t that happy with it anyway and at least I spared myself the pain of watching it.”
The former England manager will be one of plenty to watch When Eagles Dare, which was created by the club’s in-house production team – Palace TV.
With Amazon joining Sky Sports, BT Sport and BBC in broadcasting Premier League matches during the last two seasons, the Croydon-born coach expects more clubs to be asked to star in similar programmes.
“The fact is we get so much from the broadcasters, they’ve done so much in terms of putting money into the game and that money doesn’t just help academies, it’s communities with community projects and certainly provides a lot of income for the players involved, so they’ve got to try and get something back,” Hodgson said.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing it. It has been a long time in the making, a lot of hard work has gone into it and it covers a very interesting period of the club’s history.
“The club could so easily have plummeted into what is League One and that would have been one hell of a long way back to get into the Premier League from there.
“It was thanks of course to true supporters like Steve Parish and Stephen Browett who put their fanship on the line along with their money to rescue the club.
“So I can’t wait to see it and I’m certain for any Crystal Palace fan it will be a must-watch but I think it would interest a lot of football fans, who are not connected with Palace itself.”
With safety virtually assured, next season will be the Eagles’ eighth-consecutive campaign in the Premier League.
This could still be the last for Hodgson though, with his contract due to expire in the summer.
“Most of us in football, we are somewhat like actors in a way, it’s a profession that grips and is a hard one to leave behind,” he said.
“I’ve got two important weeks now, with five games and I’m anxious to see those through and then there will be plenty of time for me to contemplate what should be the next move for myself.”
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