The Damned United (2009 film)

Some time ago I wrote a short blog post about the 2009 movie The Damned United. I recently watched the film again, and thought that I would put together a slightly more substantial and considered assessment.

The film chronicles the ill-fated forty-four day tenure of Brian Clough as manager of Leeds United football club in 1974, and is adapted from David Peace's book.

Michael Sheen delivers a superb performance in the Brian Clough role, although some may contend that the depiction of Clough's well known character traits and mannerisms is slightly exaggerated and lacking in nuance. However, as the film progresses the portrayal does become more rounded, showing frailties and insecurities.

The "aesthetic" of the picture to me brings across some of the gritty authenticity of English football, and indeed England in general, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Images of terraced houses and so forth evoke feelings of "dark Satanic mills". There is not much sunshine and levity, but much honest toil and plain-speaking.  I find some modern films to be bland and clinical in their visual backcloth, but this doesn't fall into the trap as much as most.

A large portion of the movie is given over to "flashback" sequences which chronicle the relationship, and the animosity, between Clough and the long-time Leeds manager Don Revie. The football action sequences are deeply unconvincing, the actors being too old and not athletic enough, although these scenes do succeed in creating atmosphere and context for the overall story. The producers sensibly employed archive footage to help document the tale.

When I first viewed the film, I did not fully appreciate or take in the excellence of Timothy Spall's performance as Clough's assistant Peter Taylor.  In this depiction, Taylor was often the voice of reason and common sense amidst Clough's excesses and flights of fancy.  Assertive, pugnacious, but less egotistical.

Whether the characterization of Taylor presented here is an accurate representation of the true picture is another matter, but it makes for good drama, and occasionally even good comedy. The movie also acknowledges and emphasizes Taylor's input and contribution to the partnership - his eye for a player, his practicality, his contacts and his all-round knowledge of the game.

I won't ramble on about any technical or historical inaccuracies which spring up, because they always occur in films of this nature. Anyway, they are kept to a tolerable minimum, as far as I could ascertain.

As a supporter of Leeds United, I will try not to be overly paranoid concerning the film's portrayal of the club and of Don Revie. Overall, I would say there is relatively little to complain about on this score, and after all, some of the characteristics and tendencies which are highlighted are ones which we relish and glory in...

Michael Sheen has been lauded for his portrayal of Brian Clough's public persona, but for me the most impressive aspect of his performance was how he conveyed the sense of doom and helplessness, as the forty-four days unfolded, and as his position at Leeds gradually unraveled. Lonely, isolated and vulnerable, and missing the wise counsel and comradeship of Peter Taylor.

So, still a film very much worthy of  a watch, and praise also for the use of "Flight Of The Rat" by Deep Purple!

We Are The Damned United-The Real Story Of Brian Clough At Leeds United-Phil Rostron

The 44-day tenure of Brian Clough as Leeds United manager in 1974 has probably commanded more column inches and popular cultural scrutiny than any other period in the club's turbulent history. An addition to the oeuvre is Phil Rostron's book "We Are The Damned United - The Real Story of Brian Clough at Leeds United", originally published in 2009.

This particular subject touches a raw nerve among Leeds supporters, and there is a tendency for people to become defensive and touchy about it, not always indulging in lucid and critical thinking. The whole affair, I suspect, is somewhat difficult for outsiders and insiders alike to comprehend, and its nebulous and nature still makes it intriguing and frustratingly elusive four decades later.

This book is not a strict chronicle of the 44 days. There is ample build-up and scene setting, and several tangents are pursued. Some readers may seek a little more coherency and focus, but overall I found it enjoyable, if not that comprehensive.

The backbone of the book is formed by the contributions of numerous individuals who were connected or associated in some way with either Leeds United or Brian Clough, or both. We do not just hear from the "usual suspects" either;we get observations and recollections from people whose view of events has perhaps not been widely heard previously. It often seems to me that most of the established Leeds players of the time closed ranks, and decided on a story from which they would not deviate.

A nice touch for me was the inclusion of  excerpts from contemporaneous newspaper reports from the time in 1974 when the drama was unfolding. The match reports do not paint a picture of unmitigated gloom or despair, although the real problems were of course manifesting themselves behind the scenes.

Whilst "We Are The Damned United" is in many ways evocative of the atmosphere and ethos of football in the Seventies, it also serves to remind us that egos and intransigence were just as prevalent in those days, no matter how different the financial ground rules have become. Human nature has not changed in the intervening period.

What shines through here also is Brian Clough's approach to the game and to coaching. The simplicity of his footballing philosophy is something which many could learn from. His laissez-faire style was perhaps one of the things which the Elland Road stalwarts had most trouble adjusting to. The stories here about the regime in training sessions are quite illuminating.  The assertions that Clough's methods would only work with youngsters and misfits, and not established stars, do have some merit, but may be an over-simplification.

Was either side disposed to make concessions and meet half-way, or as the author suggests, was this a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object?  It would be nice to think that the impasse could have been resolved, but my feeling is that this was an unusual set of circumstances which made the situation untenable. We do not live in an ideal world, and "ifs and buts" are merely academic in this case.

It is pointed out by several contributors that the absence of Peter Taylor from Clough's side deprived him of a potentially emollient influence when dealing with his new charges. This is often cited as an "excuse", often by those who do not wish to confront more uncomfortable aspects of the saga. At the same time, the Taylor factor is undoubtedly part of the complex state of affairs which together dictated how things would turn out.

There is a wealth of anecdotes here about Clough's idiosyncrasies, and his often unconventional style. and it is hard not to find the eccentricities endearing, even if they were not always appreciated by those on the receiving end. Even in the football landscape of the 1970s and 1980s, his achievements with Derby County and Nottingham Forest still inspire awe and respect. One or two nuggets here also paint an interesting portrait of the man - one story from Duncan McKenzie springs to mind, in which he touches on the loneliness and isolation which Clough may have felt during his sojourn at Leeds.

All in all, this was a pretty good, if rather disjointed read. It is probably true to say that the definitive tome on "Cloughie At Leeds" has still to be written.

The Damned United (movie)

After some prevarication, I recently read David Peace's novel, the Damned Utd:

The Damned Utd

It also seemed logical to check out the movie, The Damned United, which was based on said novel.

One of my first thoughts when watching the film was that the authenticity and attention to detail was a cut above what is normally forthcoming in "biopics".  The settings and aesthetic were well done, and perhaps most importantly not over-ambitious.  The 1970s hairstyles and fashions were much better realised than I had expected...

The only discordant note in this respect was struck by the football sequences in the movie, which I felt were unrealistic, perhaps falling victim to an over-earnest attempt to replicate what was perceived to be the slower but more robust style of football in the 1970s.  Thankfully, these shots were used only sparingly, and the film's makers sensibly employed real archive footage.  I did notice one error, though; the lettering on the back of Leeds' famous purple tracks-suits was yellow, not white!

A few of the early scenes I found a touch discouraging, feeling that the characterisations were being over-cooked, and the acting cloyed.  However, I stuck with it, and was rewarded.  The dialogue and acting became gradually less cringe-inducing and more plausible as it progressed.

I accept that compromises had to be made to fit the story into a manageable running time for a movie, but I would have liked more concentration on the period between Don Revie's resignation from the Leeds and the appointment of Brian Clough.

In assessing Michael Sheen's performance in the Clough role, I oscillated between admiring its occasional restraint and recoiling at what seemed to be an exaggerated portrayal of the man's well-known personality traits.

Overall, I found the film to be a slight disappointment, just ever so flat and anaemic.  However, like the book, it did provide a commendably mature and nuanced depiction of Clough, and did not pander to easy cliches.

The Damned Utd - David Peace

This book had been gathering dust on my shelves for many months, but I felt a strange reluctance to give it my full attention.  This may have something to do with the ambivalent and even uncomfortable feelings which for many, myself included, surround the 44-day Brian Clough reign at Leeds.

The first thing which will strike many readers is the colourful language, which does not relent throughout. Indeed, once one becomes accustomed to the expletives, they somehow become an indispensable feature of the book, without which it is difficult to imagine the tale having quite the same impact. At the same time, the sheer incidence of the industrial language tempers its shock value, but not necessarily its "value" to the fabric of the story....

As much as its concentration on the Brian Clough/Leeds saga, this book is also a window on the gritty and often bleak ambience of the times in which it is set.  The stark, almost minimalist tone and and style of prose serves to accentuate this. The Britain of the late 60s and early 70s, is made to feel quite sinister and dark, a place where the sun rarely shone, and menacing clouds were never far away.  I was a very small child in the early to mid 1970s, and any meaningful recollections on my part are therefore impossible, but the depiction of the Leeds (my home city) of that time pretty much tallies with other accounts which I have read and heard. Almost a dystopian vision, but not quite!

The format of The Damned Utd is novel, and by and large quite effective.  The relating of the "forty four days" is alternated with the Clough managerial chronicles up until his appointment at Leeds. Although very occasionally confusing (that may just be my own feeble attention span!), this method of telling the story helps to place the drama at Leeds in some kind of context, underscoring what Leeds were letting themselves in for, but also highlighting some of the essential differences between the environments which he had previously worked in, and that which he would be confronted with when he turned up at Elland Road.

I was heartened, but not totally surprised, to note that the Clough story, up until late 1974 at least, was presented in a complex, multi-faceted light, moving beyond the stereotyped and cliched media image of him at the time. Insecurities, regrets, and relationships are all explored, as well as the curious, shifting and evolving nature of his attitude towards Don Revie and Leeds United.

As well as this being a thoroughly engrossing read, I also learned some things about the tumultous events of 1974 at Leeds.  There is possibly a tendency for some Leeds followers to expunge some episodes from this period from their minds, or airbrush them from history. It was good to get a rounded account of those days, even by a less than fully orthodox route.  The feelings which come through are despair, dread and mistrust, and the grubby, cut-throat, dark heart of football, even back then.

From what I have gathered, opinion is mixed about how some of the protagonists are portrayed in The Damned United, but whilst making allowances for this, it is a compulsively gripping and raw documenting and interpretation of those times, both within football, and in a broader social sense.

I found it a less than comfortable read at times, but felt unable to put it down....