Welcome to Worcester: Can Pears be cricket's Wrexham?

Worcestershire commercial director Joe Tromans says the club have had "multiple approaches" to allow a camera crew inside New Road

Worcestershire have been lined up to become the next sporting organisation to allow in the all-seeing eye of the camera and potentially become the Wrexham of the domestic cricket world.

The Pears already have a unique place within the English county cricket set-up, because of their classic picture-postcard back drop - and their ongoing battle with flooding from the nearby River Severn.

The impact of climate change - and the resulting increase in flooding risk - has even prompted chief executive Ashley Giles to warn that they might have to leave their much-loved home, sooner rather than later.

But that has only added to the outcry within English cricket for the Pears to protect their greatest asset - and encouraged marketing men to think that the inside story of their battle to stay afloat - almost literally - might make great viewing.

"We've had multiple parties approach us about the possibility of filming a Wrexham-style behind-the-scenes docu-series," said Pears commercial director Joe Tromans.

"They believe we have a unique story to tell, with our history, flooding challenges, and the club's global reach.

"We're open to working with the right partner to share our journey with the world. With our rich history and the scale of the club's operations - such a small team managing a huge task - there has been considerable interest."

New Road has been Worcestershire’s home ground since they entered the County Championship in 1899

Sport's best in-house video productions

The in-house sporting documentary genre really began in football with the series on Sheffield United in 1990 - in the lead-up to the sudden increased global love for the game that then kicked off at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

It helped lead to the infamous An Impossible Job Channel 4 documentary in 1994, charting Graham Taylor's ultimate downfall as England manager during the failed attempt to qualify for the 1994 World Cup.

Sunderland's in-house Premier Passions series also proved very popular in 1996 - a prelude to the hugely successful Sunderland 'Til I Die docuseries on Netflix.

Other have followed, from the six-part Being Liverpool in 2013 to Amazon Prime's All or Nothing series featuring Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham.

But it is the massive global success of the award-winning Welcome To Wrexham series that has super-charged the genre.

The docuseries, first launched in 2021 for an American market, charts the remarkable progress of a fallen former Football League club from non-league back into the third tier of the EFL thanks to the millions of Hollywood stars and owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

Cricket's first big off-field production was Fire in Babylon, which was first shown in cinemas in 2010, acclaiming the record-breaking West Indies team of the 1970s and 1980s.

The England men's Test side's rise to number one in the world in 2013 was charted in the BBC-shown film The Edge before the rehabilitation of the Australia men's Test side following the ball-tampering scandal in 2018 was used as the premise for Amazon's The Test docuseries.

But a major production involving a county cricket club is a potential gap in the market. Worcestershire could be the ones to fill it.

Ashley Giles has been Worcestershire's chief executive since June 2023 - but his experience with Warwickshire, Lancashire and England has long since made him comfortable in front of a camera lens