Boxing is the sport that has inspired the best movies, perhaps because its intense, exciting dynamics can easily be captured on camera. Sports that should have produced something half-decent, such as motor racing, merely result in duds like Days of Thunder, Grand Prix, Talladega Nights and the Steve McQueen pseudo-documentary, Le Mans. I didn’t even care for the cheap, OTT mayhem of Death Race 2000. I can’t think of a Twentieth-century flick centring on cricket while 1998’s clichéd British crapfest Up ‘n’ Under put me off tackling a rugby pic ever again. As for tennis, the 1979 Wimbledon-set extravaganza Players only lasted twenty minutes before I reached for the off switch.
America churns out a lot of baseball-flavoured stuff that I do my best to avoid, especially as being within ten miles of The Natural or Field of Dreams makes me want to scream. I remain unimpressed by the stop-start nature of gridiron, although I got through Jerry Maguire by hoping it would include at least one scene where the cutesy kid’s severed head was used for a field goal. I’ve never seen a basketball movie nor do I want to, although I feel I deserve some credit for managing to sit through a spectacularly lame Aussie effort about lawn bowls. Golf? Very unappealing, although I always enjoy that Falling Down scene where an enraged Michael Douglas on his murderous way home shakes up an entitled, stupidly dressed golfer by killing his electric cart. Oh, all right, Caddyshack was quite funny, too.
In short, apart from deeply pleasing anomalies like Rocky and Slap Shot, sports-based movies (with their frequently trotted out underdog storylines) tend to suck. Soccer is no different, especially if you try to sit through the kid-infested 1995 Steve Guttenberg vehicle The Big Green or endure Robert Duvall in a possible career low as a sweary Scottish coach in 2000’s A Shot at Glory. Then there’s Rodney Dangerfield helping his pubescent stepson crossdress to become a ringer for a girls’ team in 1992’s weird, pedo-tinged Ladybugs.
Surprisingly, there are not that many efforts from the last century when England actually won the World Cup. The best-known is probably 1981’s amusingly bonkers Escape to Victory aka Victory, which saw fit to dump a confused, wildly gesticulating Sylvester Stallone between the sticks. The charming, whimsical Gregory’s Girl from 1980 is arguably the best. However, with the shiny 1992 arrival of the UK’s greed-soaked Premier League, soccer-based movies started flying off the production line.
They’re not getting any better, though.
Yesterday’s Hero (1979)
No matter what the genre, disco music infested movies in the late seventies/early eighties, typified by Jamie Lee Curtis busting out some lengthy twirls on the dance floor during the supposed slasher Prom Night. Yesterday’s Hero, however, is even worse. Ostensibly about a has-been striker miraculously given one last chance, it plays more like a showcase for rotten, upbeat songs. Somehow I think the producers had high hopes for a successful soundtrack album along the lines of Saturday Night Fever. Instead this clichéd fairytale makes you routinely clap your hands over your ears and sympathise with the organisers of Disco Demolition Night.
Rod Turner (Ian McShane), who is no way based on George Best, is our ageing star centre forward. Except he’s no longer a star. This is clear in the terrific opening scene in which he’s playing on a quagmire of a pitch with a load of non-league hoofers, the ball having long acquired a different coloured skin of mud. Worse, his drinking is out of control and there’s rarely a moment when he isn’t in the pub or clutching a bottle. He lives in a one-bedroom flat, his riches having long been sucked dry by the taxman, women and hangers-on, as well as a penchant for fancy cars and clothes.
Redemption is around the corner, though, in the form of The Saints. They’re a Third Division outfit owned by millionaire pop star Clint Simon (Paul Nicholas), who is in no way based on Elton John. He’s invested in the club and they’re doing well, having just won an FA Cup quarter final. However, their striker has snapped a leg and they need a replacement pronto. Simon, business genius and far reaching thinker that he is, decides an over the hill, non-league alcoholic is just the ticket for the most important game in the club’s history…
Penned by that well-known footballing authority Jackie Collins, Hero failed to match the success of her bonkbusters, The Stud and The Bitch. Perhaps that’s because the only bit of nudity is McShane’s arse when he drops his shorts and jumps into the team bath. Hmm, maybe he should have been ditched altogether in favour of a scantily clad Joan Collins as the striker.
Well, I guess not. McShane is a decent actor and he does a reasonably convincing job as both a soccer player and a has-been. He doesn’t get the best support, though. First off, Adam Faith as The Saints’ manager is a dud. Diminutive and sporting a thin beard that makes his face look dirty, his only nod toward plausibility is wearing a tracksuit and shouting a bit. Of course, he hates the newly acquired Turner so much that he only calls him by his surname. Why? They used to play together when Turner was a ’big-headed bastard’, but really it’s just an excuse to dig up conflict from somewhere.
Then there’s Cloudy Martin (Suzanne Somers), a one-time girlfriend of Turner back in his playboy days who now happens to be Simon’s squeeze. That’s certainly not a contrivance. Anyhow, the memorably named Cloudy is not only Simon’s girlfriend but also his singing partner. Just think Elton John and Kiki Dee. Or the slightly more feminine duo of Elton John and George Michael. And it’s here where all those disco songs start assaulting your eardrums. Cloudy and Simon inanely and repeatedly perform at length as they embark on a European tour that sees their song We’ve Got Us rocket up the charts around the world. ‘Don’t go to parties,’ they trill, ‘Don’t go to balls/We’ve got each other/When the evening falls.’ Gawd, it’s gruelling listening to the high-energy duets of this irrepressible pair. Cloudy, in particular, twirls and gyrates onstage like a loon, her mad exertions managing to do little but scatter IQ points before her.
The Rocky-tinged Hero arrived after England had failed to qualify twice in a row for the World Cup. It is not a good flick on any level, especially the way it fumbles its soccer and disco elements (which appear to belong in separate movies). Then there’s the stupidly named teams like Leicester Forest and Birmingham Rovers, a cameo from real-life commentator John Motson remaining professional as he interviews naked, frolicking men, and a climactic match that sees The Saints’ players spliced into footage of an actual cup final. Hero’s pronounced box-office failure might have ensured soccer-based outings remained rare until the 90s, but I couldn’t help enjoying its mishmash of amusingly bonkers clichés.
Fever Pitch (1997)
This is the sort of movie that fills me with contempt. I’d rather watch superheroes trot out their daft, overblown bollocks than sit through this lame, predictable, unfunny ‘entertainment’ ever again. It’s the worst rom-com I’ve ever seen, so bad it’s even ahead of When Harry Shat on Sally.
Paul Ashworth (Colin Firth) is an English teacher at a north London comprehensive in 1988. He’s a relaxed, scruffy smoker who connects with the kids and loves football. Sarah Hughes (Ruth Gemmell) turns up in the classroom next door as the new history teacher. She’s an uptight, smartly dressed non-smoker who doesn’t connect with the kids and thinks footy fans are yobs.
Can you see where this one is going? Just picture a hundred-minute video of Paula Abdul’s bloody awful Opposites Attract with a few footy clips chucked in. Its predictability is even acknowledged after six minutes when Sarah’s roommate tells her: “I’ve seen this film. You end up shagging on the carpet.” Perhaps Fever Pitch’s only surprise is that Sarah’s ‘iron knickers’ facade doesn’t even make it past the twenty-three-minute mark. I’m not sure I’ve ever known a movie run out of plot so quickly. How the hell is the rest of the runtime padded out?
Well, lengthy, unnecessary flashbacks to the 1960s and 70s and the odd montage is one answer. Uninspired insights into family, camaraderie, relationships, work and obsession is another. Arguments about football pretty much make up the rest of the time. The men are supposed to be appealingly childish, the women the more mature, desperate-for-commitment types. Both main characters are annoying and unlikeable. The support is poor. A long time ago I read Nick Hornby’s novel (a paean to fandom’s ups and downs that I seem to recall was quite good) but his screenplay is just painfully drawn-out sh*t.
Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001)
I grew up during the 80s and can still remember the appalling media abuse heaped upon England manager Bobby Robson after the team’s co*ck up at the 1988 Euros. Good grief, it was a savage and unrelenting pile-on. Things perhaps worsened after Graham Taylor took over, especially when England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. No job, no amount of money, no dream is worth putting up with such rampant bullying. The press are c*nts, an unforgiving lot that has since multiplied exponentially to include all those toxic armchair managers on social media.
And so given this depressing state of affairs, it makes perfect sense to fashion a movie about a high-profile job that has long been viewed as slurping from a poisoned chalice. And, of course, the sick joke remains that even if England did manage to repeat their 1966 triumph, there would still be bastards out there insisting the wrong kind of footy was played and/or more goals should have been scored.
You can’t please some people, you know?
Filmed as a mockumentary, England Manager focuses on a lower league manager who gets the top job essentially because the current dude suffers a near-fatal heart attack and there are no other candidates to take over a late-stage World Cup qualifying campaign. Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson) is a likeable, down-to-earth Scouser with plenty of pithy insight, the sort that wants to walk with kings but keep the common touch.
However, although he’s not exactly bursting with intelligence and writes team sheets on the back of a fa*g packet, he does understand what soccer means to the average Joe. “For a lot of people the England team is more important than their work, more important than their marriage, more important than the telly,” he says. “When we win, take a look out of your window. People are going to work with smiles on their faces, they’re talking to each other at the bus stop. Football touches many people’s lives and it makes a difference.”
But at his bullish first press conference, the knives are already out with journos questioning his suitability. Things quickly worsen when he loses his first game in charge. “Try and be a bit positive,” he tells the press pack. “There was a lot of plusses came out the game… We’ve only gotta win one of our last two games and we’re through to the World Cup. How about getting behind the team for a change?”
But such a reasonable request is brushed aside. Reporters obviously prefer failure and they already sense blood in the water…
The brisk England Manager is largely excellent. It mixes sly humour, on the money observations, farce, gentle digs at former players and managers, slapstick, crudity and profanity, and contributions from real-life soccer personalities. It also has fun with rivalries, stereotypes, and well-known soccer incidents and staples, such as hooliganism and wayward player behaviour. Punctuated by stupid quotes from ex-England managers, it’s nicely judged and amusing. The editing is very good. I enjoyed the depiction of the Lancaster Gate hierarchy (i.e. England’s HQ) as a bunch of doddery old farts preferring to doodle rude pictures rather than get to grips with the crucial business of appointing an innovative manager. I also liked sports psychologists portrayed as New Agey idiots doing more harm than good with their intensely stupid attempts to boost confidence. Plus, Tomlinson is a believable choice as the self-deprecating, beleaguered manager whose increasingly fractious relationship with the sanctimonious media and abusive fans leads to intense stress on his family.
England Manager is not for the average moviegoer as it does require familiarity with the national team’s history. However, its Spinal Tap-like approach makes it an engaging, (lamentably still) relevant watch for those in the know.
The Football Factory (2004)
Well, I guess I had to have at least one soccer hooligan flick in here. These kinds of movies either suck hairy balls hard (e.g. Green Street) or wander into amusingly bonkers territory (I.D.) The plotless, mysteriously titled Factory belongs in the former. It misfires from its opening scene in which a cookie-cutter yob by the name of Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer) is on the wrong end of a kicking. “Getting beaten up by soccer hooligans is like having VD,” he tells us during one of his interminable voiceovers. “The f*ckin’ pain goes on forever. But that’s what makes it so exciting.”
Read that quote again. Does it make a lick of sense? How can something such as the clap be compared to enduring a kicking? How is endless pain ‘exciting’? What am I missing here? And like so many of these bloody awful hooliganism flicks, I walked away from this one clueless as to what drives young men to risk life, limb and liberty assaulting rival supporters week in, week out.
Tommy backs Chelsea FC, although we never see him inside the ground or even watching his beloved team on the telly. He prefers aggro. “What else are you gonna do on a Saturday?” he crows during a mass brawl outside a pub. “Sit in your armchair wanking off to Pop Idol?” As you can tell, this is not an enlightened man. I mean, who has ever masturbat*d to Pop Idol? When he sees an attractive girl, he blurts to a mate: “I’m gonna smash the f*cking granny out of that!” I don’t even know what such a firmly stated intention means, but I’m assuming flowers and poetry won’t be involved. At least Tommy shows a gentler side when interacting with his (irrelevant) elderly granddad, a WW2 veteran who (ridiculously) is just about to immigrate to Australia to enjoy ‘miles of golden sand and bronzed tit*’. Then again, you have to wonder why this esteemed relative’s decency and fascist-objecting outlook have had zero effect.
Factory staggers from one badly choreographed rumble to the next. The hard-edged black comedy, involving stuff like a pair of human dartboards, isn’t funny. The characters are either dull or caricatures, especially a mouthy, rightwing taxi driver banging on about ‘Pakis’ and ‘darkies’ taking over. The chopsocky sound effects are daft. The music’s terrible. Implausibilities abound like one chubby thug managing to pull a clerk during a court appearance. The thick London accents are tricky to decipher, even for this well-versed Brit, and the never-ending profanity grates e.g. “What the f*ck you doing here, you little c*nt?”
Dyer is not as woefully miscast as Green Street’s Elijah Wood, but his scrawny presence is a long way from my idea of a thug. Still, he’s not helped by the staleness of the writing, typified by a pub scene in which one fat, middle-aged nutter intimidates a younger member of the firm by channelling Joe Pesci’s ‘funny how?’ speech from Goodfellas. The scene just goes on and on as we wait for the older guy to reveal it was all a windup.
In short, everything feels exaggerated and nothing rings true. Writer-director Nick Love, who gave us the similarly poor The Business and The Sweeney, deserves a good kicking.
When Saturday Comes (1996)
Bloody hell, this one’s like rewatching Yesterday’s Hero minus the disco tunes. Mind you, the musical choices are still terrible, as is the clumsy writing and limp direction. It’s yet another example of failing to make soccer a dramatic, involving spectacle.
A far too old Sean Bean is Jimmy Muir, a working-class guy wasting his life in Sheffield. He’s forever on the piss, has a sh*t factory job and a gambling-addicted twat of a dad, and no prospects whatsoever. On the weekend he tries to play non-league soccer on near-unplayable pitches. Then a scout spots him and the fairytale is on, resulting in yet another fantastical slice of FA Cup action.
Bean doesn’t convince as a player capable of turning out for a top-tier team. He’s too heavy on his feet and has no technical ability, but his struggles seamlessly blend into a cack-handed effort that at least manages to throw in the charms of a busty stripper. Saturday goes for grimness but never feels authentic, even messing up straightforward scenes set in bookies and on the factory floor. Emily Lloyd, who sadly didn’t fulfil her potential after her glorious debut in Wish You Were Here, is along for the bumpy ride while mangling an Irish accent as the love interest.
Strangely (and just like Yesterday’s Hero), I quite enjoyed Saturday’s string of face-palming clichés. You know a movie’s failed, however, when its big dramatic moments, such as Jimmy trying to commit suicide, are far and away the funniest.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Uh-oh, time to be banged over the head by a slab of political correctness. Movies like this feel designed to deliver the ‘correct’ message first and then try to tell a story. And so girls can do the same things as boys, traditionalist parents need to change their oppressive ways, gays are fine, and minorities form a vibrant part of a modern multicultural society.
Ho-hum, all very good, but is Bend It, the highest-grossing soccer movie of all time, any good?
Well, no. It’s a weird, upside-down watch in that I’m sure I was supposed to root for the progressive characters and their nascent dreams yet found the conservative ‘baddies’ far more engaging. That’s not to say Bend It is a total bust. It has some strengths, such as a decent central performance, but its rampant flaws are more interesting.
Jess (Parminder Nagra) is a football-obsessed teenage girl living in London. She worships Man Utd star Beckham, even revealing her innermost thoughts to the huge poster she has of him adorning her bedroom wall. Weird. She plays soccer with her bell-end male mates over the park, forced to keep her passion a secret from her strict Sikh parents. One day she’s spotted making the lads look stupid with her silky skills by Jules (Keira Knightley), a stick-thin, fellow teen that plays for the Hounslow Harriers. Jules gets Jess to join the team, familial conflict ensues, and the pair ends up both fancying their vanilla male coach.
Bend It is way over the top when it comes to painting football as a liberating outlet. For the most part, even the slightest soccer-related carrying-ons provokes laughter and hugs. Soccer is life, it bellows at the audience throughout its near-two hours. I mean, look at Jess and Jules’ joy in buying a new pair of boots, cooing over them like newborns. The cynicism, play-acting, aggression, macho bullsh*t and cheating that mar the men’s game are largely absent. The Harriers might be a diverse bunch, but they’re all suspiciously attractive and heterosexual. Lesbianism (an undeniably significant component of the women’s game) has been airbrushed out and when the possibility does rear its ugly head it’s greeted with disbelief and horror by both sets of parents. A shame, really, as I always enjoy the sight of a crop-haired bull dyke spilling excess testosterone down the cleavage of a lipstick lesbian, especially if they happen to be behind bars.
Sticking with the hom*osexuality, the only gay in the village is Jess’ best mate, Tony (Ameet Chana). Not that he’s out of the closet, but he’s still the most enlightened and sensitive of her male friends. When this lot gets together to watch the Harriers play, the groan-worthy comments (like the one I just made above) are on full display. “Check out the boobs on the captain!” one yells. “She’s lucky she ain’t knocked herself out running up and down the pitch!” Tony’s response? “Why can’t you lot just see them as footballers?”
Much of the focus of Bend It is on the need to redress gender roles. Its starting point is that football is a man’s game and any girl who wants to play must be half-male or lacking in femininity. Jules’ mum (Juliet Stevenson) encapsulates this attitude. When she catches her hubby having a kickaround in the back garden with Jules, she cries: “When are you gonna realise you’ve got a daughter with breasts, not a son? No boy’s gonna want to go out with a girl who’s got bigger muscles than him! All I’m saying is there’s a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one of them without a fellah.”
Jess’ parents are even worse. They’re prudish, anti-gay, racist, oppressive, intolerant and humourless. They haven’t made one non-Punjabi friend, despite living in the UK for decades. They only eat Punjabi food and watch Indian TV shows, obviously viewing the parent culture as decadent and corruptive. Their attitudes belong to the nineteenth century, insisting it’s more important for a girl to learn to cook traditional food for a husband than to become a Western free spirit. The sari-wearing mother, in particular, is a motor-mouthed, finger-wagging harpy, obsessed with presenting the image of a perfect Punjabi family to her similarly backward friends. Just listen to her berating Jess for once again playing soccer: “I don’t want you running around half-naked in front of men! Look how dark you’ve become running around in the sun!” The father is less stern, but still backs his wife, telling his wayward daughter: “You must start behaving like a proper woman.” This, of course, involves early marriage, although whites and especially blacks and Muslims are deemed not good enough. Neither of them wants her to behave ‘like the kids here’. Bend It tries hard to be progressive, but only manages to suggest that lesbianism is a source of shameful horror, most people over the age of twenty-five are living in the Dark Ages, and girls are capable of kicking around a ball.
Bend It has other faults like over-length, some ropey acting, a lack of decent comedy, an intrusive soundtrack, and a toothless (but cleverly marketed) link to Beckham. I mean, not once do we get a shot of the guy bending it into Posh Spice. Plus, the soccer action is poor. It wants to show girls can play as well as their male counterparts but only succeeds by stacking the deck i.e. the boys are uncoordinated buffoons. When it’s just the females playing, the director chooses to overwhelmingly focus on close-ups and cutaways, which robs the action of any flow. And, of course, like most soccer tales, there has to be an element of fantasy. This one involves an American scout turning up at a tournament final looking to whisk a pair of lucky footballers off to the USA on a scholarship.
Bend It is lightweight, wish-fulfilment crap, conveniently lubricated by two major characters doing an about-face. Yes, there is the odd nice touch, such as Jess playing keepy-ups with vegetables in the kitchen as she helps her mother cook, but it does feel like it’s been created from a template. I can only recommend this one to a young, slightly dim female audience. Gregory’s Girl was subtler, funnier and somehow meatier.
Looking for Eric (2009)
Director Ken Loach, the man behind urban treats like Kes and Raining Stones, is known for his social realism. No doubt if he helmed Bend It Like Beckham he would’ve worked some grit into the script rather than the candy-floss-coated dud we got. Hence, he’s a fine choice to paint a working-class portrait of a middle-aged, footy-obsessed postman plunging into crisis.
The walls of Eric Bishop’s (Steve Evets) bedroom are covered with Manchester United posters like he’s become stuck at the age of sixteen. He’s ignored or taken for granted by his wayward kids. Oh yeah, he’s also hoarding letters instead of delivering them and started tackling roundabouts the wrong way with hospitalising results. In other words, it’s hard not to notice the poor sod has not only hit an emotional hurdle, but is very much on the slide. And at the root of it all is a cowardly decision he made about the love of his life three-odd decades ago…
At least his workmates are trying to help, banding together for a New Age self-healing session in which they picture themselves as great men, such as Gandhi or Mandela. Not all of them are convinced, though. Or as one says: “This better not be some weird cult thing. I’m not taking my pants off.” Bishop, of course, pretends to be Cantona, the ‘flawed genius bastard’ who led United to a string of league titles in the 1990s.
Things then take a surreal turn when he nicks some of his stepson’s weed and lights up in his bedroom. As usual (and just like the girl in Bend It), he starts unburdening himself to a 2-D soccer god. Only this time (and just like Bogart in Play It Again, Sam), the god steps out of the poster to advise him about getting his failing life back on track.
Bloody hell, Ken Loach is doing whimsy. Never thought I’d see that.
Cantona, whose goal-scoring exploits feature in archival action, is pretty stiff in a very underdeveloped role. He’s not required to do much more than sit on a bed, utter some French phrases and shrug. His heavily accented advice never rises above the pedestrian and, I gotta say, his scenes with Bishop don’t gel. Strangely, Cantona never quite convinces as Cantona. Plus, it’s unclear whether these hallucinatory appearances (which surely should’ve resulted from dropping acid rather than smoking pot) are a sign of Bishop’s worsening or improving mental state.
There’s also comment on the state of the game, such as ordinary fans being priced out of a Premier League ticket, and the sheer delight that a player of Cantona’s quality can bring to otherwise drab existences. However, Looking is tonally uneven, meandering and clumsy, typified by the unnecessary flashbacks to Bishop’s youth and Cantona pulling a trumpet out of a postie bag to give us an awful tune. At almost two hours, it also needed a much stricter editor, leaving me unsure whether this profanity-littered oddity (that disintegrates into outright nonsense) is any better than Bend It.
Mean Machine (2001)
Well, here’s a novelty. An actual ex-soccer player portraying a soccer player. I haven’t seen such a sight since Pelé, Bobby Moore and Ossie Ardiles made wooden tit* of themselves in Escape to Victory. Surely this bodes well and can only counteract the average soccer movie’s woeful lack of authenticity?
Maybe not.
Our main man is Vinnie Jones. Back in the 1980s he was a limited but effective top-flight midfielder, mainly because he was so intimidating that others didn’t want to tangle with him. Perhaps you’re aware of the famous photo in which he’s psychotically squeezing Paul Gascoigne’s sweetmeats like they’re a wet sponge. Gawd, the man had the sort of stare that could scare you into next week. Not only that, but Mean Machine was his sixth film in a very short period of time, suggesting his solid Lock, Stock debut was no fluke and that filmmakers liked the cut of his shaven-headed jib.
He’s Danny Meehan, England’s former captain slung in clink for match-fixing, driving drunk while banned, and being impolite to a dwarf copper. Once inside he takes part in a cons vs. screws match, apparently unbothered by the wild overacting on both teams. The training montages are dull. The overarching storyline about a corrupt governor, played by a barely recognisable David Hemmings, doesn’t grip. Jason Statham as a psychotic goalie has nothing to do. Throw in lots of prison clichés, energy-sapping direction, bland characters, relentlessly clumsy humour, and a way too long climactic match, and I have to say Mean Machine is neither a good prison flick nor a good soccer movie. In fact, it’s inept, depressing stuff.
There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000)
Crikey, what a staggeringly clumsy, poorly written mess. A shame, really, as the cast contains the reliable likes of Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone, Gina McKee and John Henshaw, but they’re all tripping over each other’s feet and scoring own goals. Lame soccer puns aside, this one is a total bum sausage.
Jimmy (Lewis McKenzie) is not having the best time of it. His single mother has just hooked up with a bleached-blonde tool of a boyfriend while the bullies at school are routinely making his life hell by doing stuff like pissing on his backpack and throwing his soccer boots into a passing garbage truck. Things aren’t helped by being a diehard Man City fan when the whole city is in the sway of Man United’s giddy ascendancy through the Nineties, a situation that puts him on the ‘endangered species list.’
After standing in front of his bedroom mirror trying to find some balls by telling himself he’s the Terminator, Jimmy joins the school team only to discover his chief two tormentors are already onboard. Not that the coach Eric Wirral (Carlyle) cares. He’s depressed and more likely to be found smoking and reading the newspaper than offering any encouragement or tactical advice.
Then things get weird. Jimmy meets a bag lady squatting in a derelict house. She gives him a pair of ancient soccer boots, a turn of events that is little more than an update of the 1960s comic strip, Billy’s Boots. Jimmy suddenly starts playing like his feet are ‘on fire’, propelling his team into the final of the Manchester Schools’ Cup at Maine Road.
As you can tell, we’re dealing with yet another scenario in which soccer provides the perfect launch pad for underdogs to win and for dreams to come true. Grimble’s problems, though, run far deeper. Characters do about-faces or are one note, the voiceover annoys, a teenage romance stumbles, the humour falls flat, far too many songs pepper the soundtrack, the soccer is poorly choreographed, Winstone is a spare dick with a bad northern accent, clichés like be yourself abound, the fantasy element is embarrassingly half-assed, and there’s nonsensical stuff like a far too young, way too small Wirral initially going unrecognised at school despite having been a City striker in the late seventies who once scored a hat trick against United.
I think I would have preferred it if Jimmy had strapped on his boots only to be transformed into a hooligan, compelled to kick heads as if striding through a f*cked-up version of The Red Shoes. Grimble is woeful, its crapness on a par with Fever Pitch and Mean Machine.
The Damned United (2009)
Ah, finally, a good soccer flick based on real life. And like all the best sports movies it’s not about the sport it depicts. The well-written, convincing Damned prefers to illuminate how the most acidic resentment can fuel ambition.
Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) is our main man. It’s the late 1960s and he’s languishing in the Second Division managing Derby. However, he has the chance to upset the mighty Leeds United after being handed a plum FA Cup tie. He’s desperate to meet the wildly successful visiting manager, Don Revie (Colm Meaney), believing they share a lot in common and that he is the ‘best manager in the country.’ Clough is so keen to impress that he even scrubs down the changing rooms himself before buying an expensive bottle of plonk in anticipation of a post-match drink in which they bond.
Unfortunately, things don’t go to plan. Such is life.
Revie remains oblivious to his existence and Derby are steamrolled by a brutal Leeds. During one fateful day, Clough’s adulation turns sour, he becomes convinced Leeds are a dirty team, and he longs for revenge. In a whirlwind six years he not only gets Derby promoted, but wins the First Division title and takes his team into Europe, leading to memorable quotes like: “I wouldn’t say I’m the best manager in the country, but I’m in the top one.” So far, so good, but when Revie moves on to take over England’s reins in 1974, Clough can’t wait to replace his rival at Leeds and do an even better job…
Except he doesn’t.
Well, not at Leeds, anyway, a managerial appointment that has gone down in the annals of football history as one of the worst (and short-lived) of all time. Hardly a surprise, really, given the man’s obsessive drive to obliterate Revie’s memory sees him make a series of jaw-dropping clangers. Just listen to him sounding off during a TV interview the day before he arrives in Leeds: “Football is a beautiful game. It needs to be played beautifully. I think Leeds have sold themselves short. They’ve been champions, but they’ve not been good champions in the sense of wearing the crown well. They’ve not been loved, but that’s hardly surprising given the type of operation that’s been in place there… They wouldn’t have played football that way if they were happy.” And when he first meets the understandably narked Leeds players he tells them to throw away all their hard-fought medals and caps because they’re ‘dirty buggers’ who only won them by ‘bloody cheating’.
Bold, yes? Wise, no. I’ve never managed anyone in my life, but I sure as hell wouldn’t start off with a pep talk like that. How can Clough be so obviously smart and so f*cking dumb?
The cliché-avoiding Damned excels at showing a fixated, egotistical man cloaked in moral superiority who thinks he can just walk into a major club and change its ethos. However, from the moment Clough turns up in Leeds’ car park it’s clear he’s landed on a hostile alien planet. Every move is fuelled by his bid to outdo Revie, as laid bare by his long-time assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall): “This mad ambition. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it’s good. Oh, yes! Like a fire that stirs everything up. Then there’s this thing that takes over and destroys everything that’s good in your life.”
Now the box-office flop Damned may get attacked for its lack of accuracy, but as you well know, I’ve long separated accuracy from plausibility when it comes to enjoying a movie. Everything about Damned feels right, especially its period details. I particularly enjoy the scruffy hairdos, ashtrays being placed in the changing rooms, and an indignant chairman baulking at paying a player three hundred quid a week. The supporting cast is excellent. The football sequences work. Best of all is Sheen’s performance which captures Clough’s charisma, arrogance, insecurity, tactlessness, verbal ferocity and increasing bitterness, a toxic combination that leads to spectacular misjudgements, the destruction of friendships and a slide into alcoholism.
Undoubtedly one of the game’s greatest-ever managers, Damned offers a revealing portrait of the deeply flawed Clough. It’s a melancholy ninety-five minutes in which his demons refuse to let him escape another man’s shadow and bask in his own considerable achievements.
DAVE FRANKLIN
Dave Franklin is the author of the scattershot, politically incorrect Ice Dog Movie Guide.
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