Jack to a King: The Swansea Story

Living in Australia, it is virtually impossible not to be some type of sports fan, as sport is so much intertwined with our National Identity (sad , I know, but it is.).

So naturally, I LOVE sports DOCO's. I was hoping this would be entertaining and it is....and more so.

There are no spoilers here and I want to say that before I watched this - I knew absolutely NOTHING about Swansea City FC (I hope I got that right).

This documentary does what great documentaries do - they inform the first time viewer with all the relevant information they will need in order to fully understand the journey that the story wants you to understand.

You don't have to like Swansea, Football or Sport to LOVE this.

If you like an improbable story with Hero's and Villains and a cast of interesting and diverse characters - as well as MAGIC.

Then you should LOVE THIS also

what a pity. a great story but....poorly told, poorly put together. e.g. early on we get a lot of talking heads but ....who are they? eventually we find out....eventually. & the chairman petty story is very unclear. OK, he buys the club for a pound but what exactly was his 'rip off' strategy? did he intend to sell the ground for development? did the club actually own the ground? was his main consultant actually involved in the porn business? what you do get is the love & passion & commitment of real fans, a fast disappearing breed. although perhaps we could have done without so much of the vodka breakfast of champions of the girl with the eating disorder....

Well wow what film, an emotional roller coaster of a film which was personal to me as I was owed Money by Swansea city when Mike Lewis was in charge ( never had it several thousand pounds) but if I knew what was going on behind the scenes I would have taken shares for the money owed, never had anything to this day, but I can see the work the new regime had to do and the risks they took, from the game at Hull through to play of final at wembley this film had me hooked from the start, was nice to see so many familiar faces from the players who I knew several of Ritchie Appleby, Jon coats ! Michael Howard and LT10 who was really funny on soccer am, the way Petty ran the club was shocking and this story needed to be told, as I did not know all the facts about him only what I heard from the players, as I used to do all their cars in my garage, it's an amazing story and an amazing turn around of a much loved football club,you don't have to like football to watch this film, as it's a story rather than about football really well made with a fantastic sound track I would recommend to everyone had a few tears by the end.

This film pushes all the right emotional buttons but so much of it is a bit lacking.

There seems to be too much fluffy filler rather than story-telling. Some of the filler: Baton girl, Anorexic fan (why is she representative of all fans? No others were really featured) and no interviews with Brendan Rodgers - the most influential manager of Swansea - ridiculous.

I did enjoy the Roberto Martinez story and Lee Trundle (no interview again.) In fact it was weird how there were interviews missed from many key individuals. Oh well. I lived in South Wales when I was younger so this film resonated with me quite a bit the landscape that Leon Brittain alludes to remains with me as a lasting impression the slag-heaps and industrial skyline.

As an emotional story this works quite well. As an informative documentary not so much.