A radio-documentary series, for ERA-SPORTS, focused on the leading sports personalities in Greece.
Presented by: Sotiris Kakisis, Elias Giannakakis
Episodes
1. Thomas Mavros
2. Aristides Kamaras and the epic of Wembley
3. Panagiotis Kelesidis and Aristides Kamaras discuss the Goulandris era of Olympiacos
4. Stathis Haitas and Panos Germanis discuss the great National Team and how it got disqualified in Mexico
5. Panagiotis Yiannakis (part I & II)
6. Panagiotis Fasoulas (part I & II)
7. Nikos Houliaras and PAS Giannina FC
8. Niki Bakogianni (part I & II)
9. Sofia Sakorafa (part I & II)
10. Sotiris Stathakis
11. Dimitris Gontikas and Yannis Laios discuss the National Volley-team of Jerzy Welz
12. Giorgos Mavrotas talks about the water polo team of Vouliagmeni NC (part I & II)
13. Fanis Christodoulou (part I & II)
14. Nikos Philippou recalls 1987; Mimis Chrysomallis contributes
15. Takis Economopoulos (part I & II)
16. Spyros Livathinos and Babis Stavropoulos talk about Giorgos Delikaris
17. Agi Kasoumi
18. Yannis Kouros
19. Mimis Papaioannou
20. Mimis Domazos and Antonis Antoniadis (part I & II)
21. Juan Ramon Rocha (part I & II)
22. Takis Nikoloudis (part I & II)
23. Dinos Kouis (part I & II)
24. Giorgos Koudas (part I & II)
25. Vassilis Hatzipanagis (part I & II)
26. Alketas Panagoulias (part I & II)
Four additional episodes, listed below, were recorded but never aired, after the series’ sudden cancellation:
27. Pavlos Tsimas talks about the football players of the 70s who were granted Greek citizenship.
28. The Parris-Tzortzis duo
29. Petros Galaktopoulos - Stelios Mygiakis
30. Antonis Kafetzopoulos discusses the AEK squad of 1968 and the Cup-Winners Cup
This one was yet another, considerably different, side of my relationship with the sports documentary.
2002 was a pre-olympic year. Everybody was getting ready for the approaching Olympic Games in Athens.
In that context, Sotiris Kakisis, a fine poet and journalist and my friend for some time, proposed an idea, where the two of us, as a duo, a poet and a filmmaker, would invite major personalities across the spectrum of Greek sports to the studio.Starting point and common ground for this project was the great love and knowledge of the subject we shared.
Some of the most mythical figures in Greek sports, from all disciplines, came to the ERA-SPORTS studio; hence, the title of the series, which was Sotiris’ idea.
Our intention was to “interrogate” those great personalities as extensively as possible, in a manner that departed from the conventional style of sports talk radio. The resulting material would be subsequently edited, much like a documentary film, in other words, with the inclusion of popular songs that either alluded to the topic at hand, or just gave the tone, as is the norm in such shows.
The series was a big success. However, since the then director-in-chief of ERA-SPORTS had been against it from the start, it was cancelled without warning, even though it had already been renewed for a second season.
Apart from co-hosting the show, which was a new and very nice experience, I had undertaken the production management, as well as the main research on each guest (that is, the things we did not already know), in order for to be very well prepared for the interviews.
That project gave me the opportunity to meet some of my childhood idols and speak with them as an equal, which meant a lot to me.
I would meet most of them again, in the years that followed, as part of the sports documentary series I made.
Some of the episodes were standalone, while a good number of them were two-part.
We had also gone to Thessaloniki, in early 2003, where I killed two birds with one stone and scheduled filming for a “Paraskinio” episode. There, at the ERT3 studio, we filmed some notable figures from Thessaloniki and northern Greece.
