Beckham documentary named best of all time as Manchester United hero turns into TV pioneer

The release and rise of new sporting documentaries have taken over the screens of punters up and down the UK.

There have been documentaries on sport for decades on end, though recently with more behind-the-scenes access than ever alongside technology improvements, we’re seeing more and more hit our screens than ever before.

Instantly, you may think of club documentaries - the brilliant Amazon Prime ‘All or Nothing’ series’ that have landed at clubs such as Manchester City, Leeds, Arsenal and Tottenham, alongside others such as ‘Welcome to Burnley’ showcasing former City defender Vincent Kompany’s miraculous league title win last season.

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Elsewhere, player documentaries on stars like Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez, George Best and more spring to mind, and of course, David Beckham’s new ‘Beckham’ viewing on Netflix is the new talk of the town alongside the WAG-atha Christie trial on Disney+. A new poll by Betfair suggests that one in five people in the UK admit sports documentaries are the go-to viewing on Saturday nights, with over 60 per cent of non-sports fans admitting they’ve watched a sports documentary.

Beckham’s, unsurprisingly and likely partly thanks to his equally-famous other half Victoria Beckham, has topped the polls as the best sports documentary of all time while Welcome to Wrexham is another in the top three behind the moving Ayrton Senna documentary on the former F1 superstar rounds up the podium, fittingly.

Over a third of fans believe they watch documentaries for what goes on away from the TV cameras and to learn about struggle and change,