Big Sam's Bolton

Bringing Big Sam’s Bolton to life was more than a production challenge. This was a chance to re‑examine one of English football’s most misunderstood eras, to celebrate a story that still strikes a chord with fans and players alike. What began as a simple idea, to take a dive into the Sky Sports and Sky Sports News archives to unlock the stories hidden there, quickly evolved into a full‑scale, feature‑length documentary that demanded craft, teamwork and a shared passion for storytelling.

Across Post Production, Audio, Grade and Editorial, the project became a showcase of what Sky’s teams do best: elevate archive into narrative, blend nostalgia with modern craft, and create a cinematic experience that pays respect both to the subject and to the people who lived it. From the early offline pulls to the final polish before its red‑carpet premiere in Bolton, every stage was shaped by a collective commitment to do justice to Sam Allardyce’s remarkable tenure, a period often misrepresented, but here reframed as the story of a visionary manager and a team that consistently defied expectation.

What follows are the accounts of the key creatives who shaped the documentary, outlining their processes, challenges, inspirations and the feelings that came from seeing the powerful impact that the finished film had on audiences, contributors and Big Sam himself.

Tom Mordey – Producer/Director

Big Sam's Bolton was born out of an idea from Sky Sports News’ Head of Channel, Steve Scott, about how to make the most of Sky Sports and Sky Sports News' extensive archive to bring to life the vast hours of unseen or forgotten footage in our vaults by tapping into some retro favourites. The story of Sam Allardyce’s tenure at Bolton Wanderers was perfect for this brief, as it’s often been misrepresented as the tale of an English manager, unfairly labelled as a long-ball dinosaur. What the documentary sought to unlock was the exact opposite - a manager full of progressive and innovative ideas, combined with some incredible 'streets won't forget' signings. 

The Bespoke Content Team and I worked closely with Editor Dave Ormston to pull together a cinematic, feature-length film, seen through the eyes of Allardyce himself, mixing together present day interviews with the major figures of the time, with archive interviews, tape footage and B-roll, to give viewers a fantastic shot of nostalgia as well as the inside track on a side that went from Division One to European football in just five seasons. We would then aim to finesse the piece in Grade and Audio with Mark Reddaway and Tatjana Radivoj to make it 'cinema ready.' 

That look and feel was essential as we took the film for its premiere at a cinema in Bolton and held a private showing for over seventy of Big Sam's former colleagues and friends. What followed was an emotional night for those who remembered some brilliant days. It was also a Sky Sports News first - a red carpet event!

Eve Ray and her Planning Team then organised a Sky campus-based premiere with Sam Allardyce in attendance once again, along with former striker Kevin Davies, where they held a Q & A with reporter Tim Thornton who did all the interviews along with Dave Ormston who explained how the film came to life. Feedback has been brilliant from all areas, and ideas for the next chapter in the series are already underway. 

James Drummond – Post Producer

We were delighted when Producer Tom Mordey from the Sky Sports News Bespoke Team came to us with an incredibly exciting project; a 90-minute, feature-length documentary telling the remarkable story of Sam Allardyce’s tenure at Bolton. The documentary would reveal how he transformed a lowly and unfashionable club into one of the most impressive teams in the country by assembling a squad of international stars and introducing forward-thinking training methods that would later become standard across the modern game. In doing so, Big Sam built a side that consistently punched above its weight and changed perceptions of what a well-managed club could achieve.

To bring this story to life, I assembled my own team full of creativity and talent:

Offline/Online Editor, Dave Ormston, immersed himself fully in the material and worked tirelessly alongside Tom to shape the narrative into something truly compelling and earning high praise from Big Sam himself, who described Dave as a “genius.”

Dubbing Mixer Tatjana Radivoj faced the complex task of blending archive sound with contemporary interviews, seamlessly weaving the past and present together to create a rich and immersive soundscape. Tatjana often works alongside the Sky Sports Premier League team, so her experience and skill in elevating football content really shone through on this project.

For the Grade, Colourist Mark Reddaway then brought the visuals to life, delivering a beautiful look across the iconic Sky Sports football archive as well as the film’s interview footage which fully captured the excitement of the time and the team spirit that Big Sam created.

One of the most influential yet underappreciated managers to work in the Premier League, Sam Allardyce was truly a man ahead of his time. His teams helped shape a generation of footballers and his story remains an important chapter in the evolution of the modern game. For me it was very special because Big Sam was a key player at a time when I was falling in love with football. To be involved in bringing this fantastic documentary to the big screen and to hear even more stories and insights from the man himself at a special post-screening Q&A at Sky’s on-site cinema was very special indeed.

David Ormston – Offline/Online Editor

Big Sam’s Bolton was a huge project, encompassing the eight years that Sam Allardyce was in charge at Bolton Wanderers and the incredible job that he did there. At its heart it’s a very British story featuring the underdogs of a relatively small club, as well as the amazing camaraderie that comes from an extraordinary group of players led by a visionary individual. It’s about the creation of something very special which, on paper at least, shouldn’t have even been possible.

I first heard about the documentary when Tom Mordey asked me to come up with some graphics for his latest project. By this point he’d already started pulling archive material, rough-cutting interviews and shaping the early bones of the film. Shortly after he asked if I’d be up for getting involved in the Offline as well and having worked with Tom and the rest of the Bespoke Team before it was an opportunity that I jumped at without hesitation.

The first few days in the edit were all about getting to know the material and creating transcripts for Avid Script Sync. Once that was done, I started working through Tom’s expertly assembled pulls, expanding on these and adding in elements that supported the overall structure of the film which, in turn, helped to develop the flow and strengthen the narrative. From the outset, Tom was keen to make this a proper, feature-length documentary, running to somewhere around the 90-minute mark, and this was helped by the enormous amount of material we had to draw on from those eight years of Sky Sports archive. That meant not just the match footage, but also brilliant behind-the-scenes moments from Sky Sports News features as well as some lively Soccer Saturday coverage which really added to the sense of time and place.

With Tom’s research and all that background material the story progressed quickly. We were briefly held up by some logistical challenges, including the scheduling of the contributors around their other commitments, but when Tom was away filming, I could carry on finessing the documentary. Once the last of the interviews were in the can, the film moved on at pace.

Unusually for a project of this scale, I also took on the Online edit, but this made sense given the flexible nature of the schedule and because I had been flagging and fixing any technical problems whenever there was a pause in filming. Having first-hand knowledge of the various pitfalls relating to material that stretched back nearly three decades was hugely beneficial and once the graded pictures and final audio were delivered, I was able to really go to town polishing the film by tackling all the expected challenges, such as dead pixels and interlacing issues, all of which were resolved quickly and easily.

Tom’s plan was always to premiere the film at an independent cinema in Bolton. The idea was to give Sam, the club staff and the local press, as well as the contributors, the first viewing. I was lucky enough to be invited along to see the reaction first-hand, which was a nerve-wracking experience, but Sam and everyone involved were genuinely delighted, which was incredibly rewarding.

Tatjana Radivoj – Re-recording Mixer

I had previously worked with Producer, Tom Mordey on the football documentaries How Africa Changed The Premier League, and David James: The One and Only, so I was really looking forward to teaming up with him again on Big Sam’s Bolton. I love working on Sky Sports content whether that's longform narratives or fast turnaround shortform pieces and I've developed strong relationships with Producers across various teams in Sky Sports including Sports News, EFL and the Premier League. The stories they tell about individuals and teams are always incredibly interesting, moving and nuanced, so I was very excited about the opportunity to contribute to a feature-length story told over 90 minutes. 

To find out what I could bring to the project, I went to see Tom and Dave during the Offline stage to get a sense of the story being told and to discuss Tom's ideas for the Mix. That also gave me an idea of any challenges that might lie ahead and what I could do to prepare. I didn’t know much about the backstory so I really enjoyed learning about Bolton and Sam Allardyce as I was working on it. There’s a lot of great archive in the documentary which has a very nostalgic feel to it so I made sure to keep it sounding authentic whilst doing any gentle cleanup necessary. Where appropriate I enhanced the archive with sound effects, for example with the crowd noise and any necessary Spot FX. When it came to the present-day interviews I really focused on clarity as there were a lot of interviewees contributing a lot of information to the programme. For this I used light de-noising, EQ and compression to keep the dialogue loud and clear, including some more surgical de-noising to remove rustling. Then there were all the graphic elements which required sound design, such as newspaper headline graphics and the slider showing the different years in Bolton’s history, which I enjoyed creating. I also put a lot of care into balancing the music levels, especially in the more emotional sequences including the very end of the film.

The story was constantly evolving right up to the wire, so I needed to be across any changes in the Edit whilst I was working on the Mix. With new interviews being added even once most of the documentary had been mixed, I had to be in constant contact with Dave who was making the necessary recuts by using my temp mixes as a dummy track. In this way I could easily track the changes and use EdiLoad to do re-conforms. All those changes meant that I also needed to liaise with the Planning Team to make sure we had enough time for all the various deliverables including seamless, parted and online/YouTube versions. 

I often found myself smiling whist watching the film because you can really see how much those years meant to the manager and all the players. Seeing Sam’s reactions as he watches the different segments of the interviews and the football matches themselves was very moving (especially the ending!). It’s a brilliant documentary, both for those like me who were unfamiliar with the story, and for those who remember those years fondly.

Mark Reddaway – Colourist

I've been very lucky to Grade some fantastic projects for Sky Sports, especially for Tom Mordey and the Bespoke Team. Most of the pieces I'd done for them previously were either multiple episodes or 60-minute programmes, so the chance to Grade a full, feature-length documentary was incredibly exciting and an opportunity that I grabbed with both hands. This is a fascinating story about a manager and a team that I’d enjoyed watching as I was growing up. It’s full of so many interesting stories, some of which are almost unbelievable that I had no idea about.

The documentary features a lot of great interviews with the main contributor, Big Sam Allardyce, mainly seen in a cinema watching the footage that tells the story and evokes the memories of that time. This was where I wanted to give the piece a cinematic feel by pushing the lighting and contrast captured during the filming, whilst also using a deeper colour palette instead of just pushing the saturation throughout. This helped to really drive home the emotions of different moments in Sam’s time at Bolton. The slight difficulty with this set up came from the footage being shown on the screen in front of the subject and trying to match this up with the full screen clips, but after some judicious use of masking and tracking, I was pleased with the results.

There was plenty of archive used in the telling of this story, not only match footage from the time, but also Sky Sports News reporter packages which proved to be a challenge when it came to marrying everything together. That was especially true of some of the ‘run and gun’ camerawork when compared to the well-lit and nicely framed contemporary interviews. I wanted to make the archive feel older and of its time, including some fantastic moments such as the toilet racing and forfeits for the management team which I wanted to make feel a little more light-hearted compared to some of the more disappointing moments in his career where key games were lost. They key was to keep the overall look consistent for the audience and I feel that I managed to do this throughout.

This is honestly one of the best pieces of work that I've been a part of. The story is engaging and interesting, and with modern football going back to being very set-piece heavy, a style of play that Big Sam was often criticised for, it’s nice to know that not only was he was ahead of his time, but that the players loved playing for Bolton as a team and for him as a manager. Big Sam’s Bolton may have a running time of 90 minutes, but it certainly doesn't feel like it! The entire team did a fantastic job and for me it's the best piece that Tom has ever produced, I’m really pleased with result. Plus, having the opportunity to hear from Big Sam at a special screening here at the Sky’s Cinema, and to learn how much he enjoyed it, was just the icing on the cake!