Ashes ripe for a Hollywood remake

The Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin comebacks could inspire a whole world of sporting revisionism
Kim Clijsters
Kim Clijsters' successful comeback could encourage a host of sporting remakes, from the 1936-7 Ashes to the 1953 FA Cup final. Photograph: Nick Laham/Getty Images

Kim Clijsters has started a bit of a fashion in her native land. No sooner had I got used to being able once again to point to the TV screen and gabble, "Her father was Belgian Footballer of the Year in 1988, you know" to an empty room, than the US Open champion's compatriot Justine Henin has announced that she is coming outof retirement too.

If things are going to continue like this in the country General Charles de Gaulle claimed had been "invented by the British to annoy the French", then it may not be long before Marc "The Fighting Pig" Wilmots is back wearing the national jersey, Eddy Merckx is again riding in the Tour de France, the elegantly monikered golfer Flory Van Donck (second in the Open in 1956 and 1959) bestriding the fairways, and Raymond Ceulemans, who dominated the sport of straight billiards, cushion caroms and balkline, while avoiding any table with pockets in it, for unspecified and possibly Freudian reasons, will be chalking up his cue again aged 72. Clijsters' spirited win in New York definitely helped.

Most sporting comebacks don't end so happily. This is because the most likely sportspeople to un-retire are boxers. When a fighter returns to the ring there's usually an unsettling whiff of desperation about it. Because no matter how much he talks of rekindled hunger, unfinished business and a desire to leave a legacy, there's always a suspicion that at the back of the deal is a large unpaid tax bill, or a forthcoming divorce.

You rarely get a second go in sport, which is why it amazes me that no game has so far followed Hollywood and got into the remake business. Old movies are always being updated, rebooted and turned 3D to appeal to a younger generation. This week the new version of Fame hits the screens at multiplexes up and down the country. According to leading cultural commentators (my daughter and her mate Millie) this is "exactly like the old version, only better, because it's, like, more modern, isn't it?"

There is, I believe, a feeling among the young folk that anything that hasn't happened in the past 12 months is crap and if it is in black-and-white then it has gone so far beyond crap it has passed right back through the food chain and is on the shelves of the local Tesco's with a sell-by date stamped on it. Film critics may have excoriated Gus Van Sant's update of "Psycho" as pointless pap, but it is praised by the flocks of Year Elevens who pass through my house at regular intervals to switch all the lights on and finish the biscuits. They rate it as infinitely superior to Hitchcock's effort because "it's basically the same as the original, only it's in colour and it's got famous actors in it like Vince Vaughn". And if this is what they think about knife-wielding transvestite psychopaths, then surely they will feel exactly the same about Geoff Boycott and Nobby Stiles.

Van Sant's faithful frame-by-frame reworking seems to me an approach from which sport could benefit. Because at present it seems to me that nobody – with the shining exception of Manchester United whose latest ruse is a limited-edition replica 1968 European Champions Cup final shirt that comes complete with the AIG sponsors logo, just like the one Brian Kidd kissed when the final whistle blew – has quite realised that if games such as football are going to optimise income streams from their archive resource then they are going to have to make them more appealing to a younger demographic.Nobody wants to see anybody tampering with the basic structure of the 1953 FA Cup final, but if you want to engage a modern audience I think you're going to have to come up with a hero who's a bit younger and more buff than Stanley Matthews.

Some may say football remakes are unnecessary because the game follows an endless repetitive cycle of championship climaxes, World Cup let-downs and Michael Owen sending out a clear message to the England boss. There are some observers who feel that one season's Craig Bellamy furore is barely over before a new one begins. Admittedly, the Welsh striker has been attached to trouble so often casual onlookers may have formed the impression he has a double-barrelled name, Bellamy-Controversy. Even so the idea would have some benefits.

Imagine for example the dinner party conversations that we might have enjoyed if sporting remakes had become the rage. One fan might opine: "The original 1936-37 Ashes series is pretty good, but I think I prefer the Billy Wilder version from 1963 with Bill Lawry as Stan McCabe." Another would counter: "I thought there was a lot to enjoy in Wim Wender's approach though I'm afraid Paul Terry's performance as Maurice Leyland was so unconvincing it unbalanced the whole thing."

And a third would top them by saying: "But you must have seen the Kurosawa? Of course he's shifted the action to 15th Century Japan and it's amazing how the mental battle between Hammond and Bradman is enhanced by the rigid honour code of the Samurai, while the sight of the Bill Voce character running into bowl in full armour is really quite breathtaking."