Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian future where books are burnt… well, cricket has just suffered similar sacrilege.
If you have watched old cricket footage on YouTube, especially from Australia, the chances are that you had Rob Moody to thank for it. Known as cricket’s digital archivist, he has been recording matches off the telly with fanatical dedication for four decades, and uploading to YouTube on his Robelinda and Robelinda2 channels for 14 years. Fans included Shane Warne, Bill Lawry and Nasser Hussain.
He has more than 30,000 DVDs of cricket and 1,000 undigitised VHS tapes and commercially released tapes (like Gooch’s Indian Summer) in his Melbourne home – although the funny thing is, he has never played the game, and hates all other sports (well, he tolerates tennis).
The important thing to realise too is that he has never made money out of it.
Copyright battles have always hindered him, however, and culminated in his YouTube channel being erased last November.
Moody, 46, a musician, recalls the sad day. “I was doing an ‘INXS’ gig in Perth, and I started taking calls from cricket journalists,” he told The Cricketer. “I couldn’t believe that I was on the news. In the end I got shut down for a video from Australia’s series in Bangladesh, of all places, in 2005/06. The England and Wales Cricket Board and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, have been horrendous about copyright, but I didn’t think somebody in Bangladesh – I’m not even sure who – would end it all.
“I can’t fight it. There was a big push to get the channel reinstated but they wouldn’t back down. It’s up to others to waste their time to put things up. I won’t go through the drama again. I’m over the heartbreak now. In a way it was quite funny. I had the usual people fussing about copyright. The ECB were horrendous. A rabble. They didn’t understand it. They objected to series like Bangladesh v Australia… I thought, ‘How do you guys think you have ownership of this?’ Bizarrely in late January this year I had an email from the ECB saying that they had released 167 copyrights of matches/series, including the 1984 Lord’s Test when Gordon Greenidge scored a double-century. I thought: ‘What do you mean, you morons, the channel has gone?!’
“India were also horrendous. West Indies were good, Australia were pretty good. The ICC were OK. They said: ‘We only care about ICC events from 1992 onwards, so apart from that, go for it!’ That meant I couldn’t put up the 1992 World Cup, however, which was a shame… it was an amazing tournament. We still talk about it. It was easily the best World Cup. Even then I was thinking, ‘1992 – it’s a long time ago, guys!’”
The good news is that Moody is still recording. “I still get calls from broadcasters. ‘Glenn McGrath has just mentioned a wicket, can you send us the clip please?’ I live near Bill Lawry. He’s not on social media, but we talk about the channel. Warnie loved it. Lots of top players did – Dean Jones and Ian Healy, Nasser and Mike Atherton. Simon Jones messaged me the other day – he wanted an interview he did on one of his first days.
He said it was embarrassingly bad, and his mates wanted to see it.”
So how did it all start? “Purely by fluke. My dad used to record a lot of films in the early 1980s on VHS. At the end of the recordings were the Channel 9 highlights on at 11pm. I didn’t play cricket, have never played – I was terrible; but I was fascinated by this weird-looking guy with grey hair. It was Richie Benaud. There’s never been anybody like him. I didn’t like Aussie Rules, I don’t like any other sport, except I watch a bit of tennis.
“I couldn’t really figure out what was going on in cricket in those days, it’s not like now where you are told such and such need 100 off eight overs… it was relatively slow… but I loved the awesome commentators, everyone knows it was the great era… sadly many are no longer with us… I also loved the music, New Horizons.
“I didn’t know there were seasons; but when I realised that the football season had been going on forever, I thought: ‘Where is the cricket?’ So I was rewatching the same cricket highlights. ‘When does the cricket happen again?’ When I discovered it was October/November, I thought, ‘I better actually record some new stuff rather than watch the same bits. I recorded the highlights, then started doing the whole day. That was when the s*** got real. At some point in the late-80s I realised I could get five-hour tapes, and that was good! Especially when I was at school.”
Was there any time when his father or mother said they wanted to use the video? “Ha, you are bringing up some mental scarring! Yes, they had the s**** a lot of time. When I got home and realised Mum had changed the channel was heart-breaking. I could see Allan Border had 120 not out and I was never going to see it! Eventually I got my own VCR in about 1989. It was a two-head, I didn’t know you could get four-head with stereo sound, but it was a good workhorse. Thankfully Channel 9 only showed the Australian summer only so I could have the winter off!
“In Australia the commentary is abysmal now, in England you guys seem to be going much better: in Australia we massively respect Mike Atherton and Hussain. We also love David Gower. It’s not the same now it’s on Channel 7 and Fox, but Ricky Ponting is amazing – the number of wickets he calls, 20 seconds before… he reads the tactics so well. He has no interest in shouting ‘that’s a Chemist Warehouse wicket’ or whatever.
“Nowadays I’d need 120 VHS machines, look what is happening now. T20 tournaments in New Zealand, Bangladesh, everywhere… I record them all. But nowadays I do it all through the computer.”
We had a funny moment in our chat – me during the first half of Fulham v Liverpool one Wednesday evening, him eating breakfast – when I went off on one about England’s 1986/87 campaign. “Well, it was Mike Gatting’s men winning the Ashes, World Series Cup and Perth Challenge,” I said. “Oh really?” he replied drolly. Oops. Of course he knew already. “That was a great season,” he said. “Australia didn’t win but it’s never been about that. It’s the spectacle… Allan Lamb hitting 18 off the last over at Sydney… it was so cool, a golden era.
“I did catalogue my VHS tapes at one point, but it was getting out of hand. I stopped recording the full day’s play of Tests/ODIs for a short while as I just ran out of money and room. My parents were like, ‘Come on!’ I was getting better at guitar so I wanted to spend money on that. I didn’t record the 1993/94 season (New Zealand and South Africa), which later left me p***** off, but returned for the 1994/95 season. That was a good Ashes series, not as comprehensive an Australia win as some people said. Ditto the 1997 Ashes. The urn was very much up for grabs when Australia were 50 for 4 at Headingley, and Graham Thorpe dropped Matthew Elliott at slip off Mike Smith (on 29, he went on to make 199). The 1998/99 series too – the fifth Test was ‘live’.”
Moody is also a big fan of domestic cricket. “It’s been treated badly, like it has in England – the top players don’t play in it much. Our 50-over tournament, they ship everybody to some back field in Adelaide that nobody has heard of, and get it done and dusted in 18 days. I don’t mind the Big Bash, I like proper players with good technique. The 1980s and 90s were a golden era, though. I used to love Dean Jones playing for Victoria in the McDonald’s Cup, before he played for Australia. He was lightning between the wickets. Then in the 1990s Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Ponting, McGrath and Warne… they were so cool and young. It was great to think, ‘One day they might play for Australia’.”
Some years later Moody had the chance to share his amazing collection with the masses. “YouTube came along around 2007 but internet speeds were abysmal, it was still dial-up… people don’t understand the pain of dial-up: a five-minute clip took nine hours to upload. By 2009 the internet improved. I saw other people uploading cricket, so I thought, ‘I have a few matches’. I wondered if people, wanted to watch this s***. I called it Robelinda after the joint email address I had with my wife Belinda. Indian fans think it is Robelindia, to the annoyance of Pakistan fans.”
YouTube is a money-maker for many people, and I assumed it was for Moody. “No, I have never made a cent. You cannot make money unless you own the copyright.”
Now as a collector of a great many things, I can completely relate to Moody’s hobby… but some people may find it a little fanatical… even, dare I say, weird. “People hoard stuff, random stuff… I still collect stamps,” he said. “Also, music, tapes, vinyl, then CDs.”
So how does he make a living? “I’m a musician. I play guitar and saxophone. I’ve been part of an INXS tribute act for 10 years. We go all around the world, we went to America last September.”
Is he a fan of the comedian/impersonator, the 12th Man, Billy Birmingham, I wonder. “Absolutely. I tried to sync up his commentary with the real clips but didn’t have the technology. Eventually, a long time later, 10 years ago, I worked to how to do it, and I put it on YouTube. But Billy got it taken down over copyright.”
Oh, that darn copyright again. It just doesn’t seem right. Yes, for me to plagiarise an article by James Coyne, for example, that is completely wrong. But this is footage of historical events. “The saga started from day one and never seemed to end. People have had more bizarre cases than even mine. A mother uploaded her one-year-old taking their first steps, and Prince objected to his song in the background… how ridiculous.
“Cricket rights change owners all the time. You just never knew who owns what. Who owns the 1994/95 Ashes, for instance? I assume Cricket Australia… but I have had talks with them and they don’t seem to know. In the end I got shut down for a video of a series in Bangladesh in 2006. I don’t know who objected, just that they also got shut down themselves later on.”
His passion for watching and recording is still there. “I can’t wait to watch the dual Tests tonight (India v England first Test, Australia v West Indies second Test),” he said. “I will be recording them. Old habits die hard. If you came into my house, things are well hidden for my family’s sake. My wife had a go at me about it for a while. The kids are 14 and 16. Their friends say, ‘Your dad is famous on YouTube’. My son was like, ‘Oh my god’.”
He stands by his decision to declare – “never again” – but we know what happened to Sean Connery and James Bond… Never say never again.
So let the campaign begin to appoint Moody as cricket’s official digital archivist.
Huw Turbervill 
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