Significant restoration of the Wimbedon archive undertaken as part of 150th anniversary celebrations of the AELTC

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To mark the 150th anniversary of the setting up of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), which was founded on 23 July 1868, it is working with IMG and R3store Studios to restore a “huge amount” of its archive.

Around 30 hours of content, dating from the 1920s to the 1980s is being restored, including official films and news reels. The content features both match action and old interviews with players such as Connolly and Perry.

There’s also a future king of England playing in the men’s doubles, footage from the 1950s of people queuing overnight for Centre Court tickets and a one-armed man playing in the Championships.

Until now, the large collection of film reels from Wimbledon have been stored at IMG but never properly viewed. This restoration project has “uncovered a whole host of lost footage and the original negatives of many classic Wimbledon moments,” says R3store Studios, which is scanning the film. It is also responsible for the automated restoration and manual frame-by-frame repairing of images.

Mick Desmond, commercial and media director of the AELTC, said: “We are proud to be carrying out this important work to help us celebrate a fundamental chapter in our history. We are looking forward to seeing fantastic scenes and moments uncovered during this process.”

Sheilagh Little of IMG adds: “The work carried out by the IMG Library and R3Store has revealed footage of extraordinary historical value with some moments simply taking one’s breath away.”

Jo Griffin, COO of R3store Studios said: “Working from the original negs has been wonderful and I think everyone who views this content will be amazed at just how fantastic it now looks.”

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