I have hazy memories of watching my older brother play football in Victoria Park, Smethwick, circa mid-1970s. He wore a red kit in honour of his favourite team, Manchester United (I was brought up in a family that supported Aston Villa and Manchester United). I remember the trophies he won at football. He was spotted by a football scout who believed he was talented and would go far. The scout spoke to my parents telling them he was offering my brother a trial at a football club (can’t recall which one). My brother turned it down, he had his heart set on being a sculptor. He wanted to go to art college and possibly do a fine art degree later. That was my brother’s plan and he stuck to it. I do wonder whether he regretted his decision he made as a teenager.
Bremner, Giles, Lorimar, Best, Keegan….. conjure up 1970s Saturdays and Sundays of the big matches on television that I endured as a kid… The highlights on Grandstand along with the football scores at the end (and the Football Pools) patiently waiting for Dr Who to start.
These were my memories watching the excellent The Damned United. Based on David Peace’s eponymous book, and if you are expecting a similar adaptation like the recent televised Red Ridingtrilogy then you will be a tad disappointed. The book which has much more stark and grim overtones while the film is more comedic, and concentrates on Clough’s enduring friendship with Peter Taylor. Another omission is that the book gives more of a psychological insight into Brian Clough.
In saying all that the end result surprised me.
Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) was manager in 1974 for 44 days at Leeds United before being sacked. The previous manager was Clough’s rival, Don Revie, who went on to manage the England team. The film revolves around those 44 days. Though to give context to the macho rivalry between Revie and Clough the film flits backwards and forwards between ’68/69 and 1974. Some reviewers have found this device confusing but to establish the beginnings of this obsession Clough had with Revie you have to go back. The film juxtaposes the friendship between Clough/Taylor (which disintegrates over professional conflicts) and the rivalry with Revie.
There is a kind of warlike battle cry imagery when Clough psyches up the nervous and twitchy Derby County footballers when about to face Leeds United. They still lose…
The film splices actual footage from that period which gives it a powerful kick. We witness the rise of Clough and Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) leading Derby County into the Second and First Divisions ending with various meets with Leeds United. And making Clough more determined that his club Derby will beat Leeds.
What is impressive about the film is the interactions between the two leads, Spall and Sheen. There is real enduring believable friendship. In essence, the film isn’t truly about football (it has more of a secondary function) it’s about the dynamics between Taylor and Clough. And the trials and tribulations between the two, talkative wisecracking Clough to the more quiet thoughtful Taylor. Both Spall and Sheen give wonderful perfomances. Sheen gives an exceptional interpretation of Clough’s complex ’flawed genius’ personality, a wisecracking, sharp tongued, quipping man driven by obsession and ambition. You sympathise with Sheen’s portrayal and kind of admire Clough giving the Board hell though as Peter Taylor acknowledged there were times he should keep his mouth shut!
And what I also like about Sheen (and in previous films) is that he doesn’t just demonstrate the character through dialogue and language but through the dimension of expression and non-verbal communication. The (in) famous scene where Clough and Revie go head to head in an interview orchestrated by Austin Mitchell ends with Clough sitting quietly while the lights go out of the studio, he is left staring, dejectedly, into space. And the chameleon like Sheen captures it.
Revie (Colm Meaney) is portrayed as the archetypal old-fashion style football manager while Clough, younger, wants to emphasis skill and clear out the cheating and fouling he sees in Leeds United. Clough is a risk taker who can’t be controlled while Revie is a ‘safe pair of hands’. Socialist Clough is described at the end of the film as, ‘the best British manager the England football team never had’.
Everything about this film from the dialogue, performances, splicing footage, and cinematography captures the 1970s. There isn’t an over emphasis on 1970s products, it is very sparing same with the soundtrack.
The film doesn’t need to try too hard to make you believe it is the late 1960s or mid-1970s. The football crowd is white and male. The women in Taylor’s and Clough’s life are relegated to the background, we don’t get any impressions of what they thought about any of this, except telling them that ‘tea is on the table’. But that’s the traditional straitjacketed role women were expected to fulfil…though I think the film also examines, superficially, the contradictions of masculinity.
Even the grainy quality of the film gives it an extra 70s feel. The hair styles, football kits, the run down clubs, the design of the coaches taking the footballers to fixtures, interiors, clothes…all these simple devices pulls the viewer back into the 1970s. Also, the days before football become commercialised and corporatised, the big money spinner where the fans are caught between a rock and a hard place, supporting your team but at an overwhelming financial cost (there’s a scene where Clough, presciently, says to the Derby County Chair that football is now about money). The so-called ‘beautiful game’ sold off to the highest bidder.
The end credits mixes up old footage with new again, with Bowie’s Queen Bitch playing in the background, we witness the trajectories of Revie and Clough. Revie didn’t last as England manager and ended his career under a financial cloud while Taylor/Clough took over a provincial football team called Nottingham Forest and led it to victory…..
There has been criticisms of Peace’s book which is a fictional account of a real life event (and Peace repeats this with the ‘Red Riding’ trilogy). But Peace, I don’t think, has ever said it was the truth. The art of faction has its problems, and there is a fine line, but weaving fictional and real life events together can give an exaggerated form of storytelling (certainly with Peace’s fictionalised account of real-life police corruption). I remember similar comments being made about the film 24 Hour Party People (the narrative being about the career of Tony Wilson).
Whether any of the Damned United (film and book) is true or just fiction (and the family of Brian Clough were upset by the book) but it depicts Clough as an outspoken complex man with his own obsessions.
Though I was disappointed, and whether this is true or not, that the early part in the book where Clough takes an axe to Don Revie’s desk is omitted from the film. And that would have been a powerful cinematic scene but maybe they thought it was too overkill, who knows…
Secondary title: Wait for the revolution, babe!
