Monday, March 30, 2009
The Damned United
As football was a major part of my life in the 70’s, and Cloughie one of the decades standout characters, it didn’t take much to persuade me to head for our local cinema to watch The Damned United – a film of the book that covers the short and disastrous reign of Brian Clough at Leeds United.
Not only is the film a great trip down memory lane for the nostalgist it is also a hugely enjoyable look at the relationship between Cloughie (Michael Sheen) and Peter Taylor (Tim Spall) who for many years was his right hand man at Derby County. Sheen I thought captured the dry humour and also the arrogance of Clough quite brilliantly, while Spall (although no Taylor Lookie-Likie) was superb as his long suffering colleague and friend. The supporting cast were pretty decent too, Colm Meaney great as Don Revie, although Stephen Graham wearing an awful ginger wig looked nothing like United captain Billy Bremner.
Action and crowd scenes were filmed at Chesterfield’s Saltergate ground. Football films in the past have always failed miserably at making these shots look believable (Escape to Victory excepted :-)) but in The Damned United I think they’ve got it spot on. Particularly the shots of Derby playing at the Baseball Ground – it was just how I remembered it in the mid to late 70’s.
There are quite a few external shots of Elland Road too (featuring those bits of the ground that have not been altered in someway in the intervening years) including Clougies first meeting with his new side on what would have been the training pitch at the time (now a car park I believe).
Overall a thoroughly enjoyable 90 odd minutes and one of the best British films in a good number of years.
posted by chevblue at 4:28 pm
extreme groundhopping
a (mainly) pictorial account of one man's obsession with football stadia, floodlight pylon's and ipswich town football club
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