The Damned United (2009)
11.30pm, Monday, BBC Two
“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the country; but I’m in the top one”
David Peace’s chronicle of Brian Clough’s 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United is one of the most compelling sports books of our time. On paper, it’s very much a cerebral exercise as the author gets inside the head of the outspoken manager and cleverly juxtaposes his troubles at Leeds with his earlier triumphs at Derby County. When it came to putting it all on screen, director Tom Hooper and screenwriter du jour Peter Morgan (The Crown), maximised the dramatic elements of Cloughie’s story in order to create a fascinating piece of cinema.
At the heart of the movie is another (following Kenneth Williams, Tony Blair and David Frost) superb characterisation by Michael Sheen as Britain’s most outspoken football manager. Though The Damned United is ostensibly a sports book, at its heart are two very human relationships. The rst is between Clough and his right-hand man, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) who, tellingly, didn’t accompany him to Elland Road for his ill-fated sojourn. The second is between Clough and Leeds supremo Don Revie (Colm Meaney). Revie was then the most successful manager in the country but Clough despised his superstitions (always the blue suit) and the bites-yer-legs reputation of his core players, Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter and our man, Johnny Giles (Peter Mcdonald). In his short time at Elland Road, Clough never managed to win over those players and fans that had idolised Revie. His failure was compounded by a painful TV interview (a key scene in the movie) in which, not long after being sacked by the Leeds board, Clough was publicly admonished by then England manager Revie for his inability to follow in his footsteps. As it turned out, Cloughie had the last laugh as Revie would fail in the England job while he would go on to lift (with Nottingham Forest) the European trophy that eluded his great rival not once but twice.