Brian Clough (1935-2004) has some claim to be regarded as the greatest ever club manager in English football. Others, such as Bob Paisley and Sir Alex Ferguson, may have won more in terms of trophies, but they did so after taking over clubs which were already wealthy, successful and established. Clough's unique achievement was to take over a struggling, unsuccessful Second Division club, Derby County, turn them into English champions, and then to repeat this feat with a second struggling, unsuccessful Second Division club, Nottingham Forest, who went on to become not only English champions but also European champions.
Clough's career in football management, however, was not an uninterrupted success story, and "The Damned United" tells the story of his greatest failure, his 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974. Over the past decade, under the management of Don Revie, Leeds had become one of the leading clubs in England, and in 1974 were reigning League champions. They were, however, also the most hated club in England, having become notorious not only for a cautious, defensive attitude to the game but also for gamesmanship and violent play.
Although Clough and Revie loathed one another, they had much in common. Both came from the same town, Middlesbrough, growing up only a few streets apart. Both had enjoyed successful playing careers, playing at centre-forward, both had been capped for England, and both had played for the same club, Sunderland. Revie had also taken over Leeds United as a struggling Second Division club and had turned them into champions. Yet they had very different attitudes to the game. In contrast to Revie's "win-at-all-costs" attitude, Clough was an idealist with a firm belief in fair play and open, attacking football; he frequently referred to "the beautiful game", long before this phrase had become the cliché it is today. When Revie was appointed as England manager, Clough therefore seemed a strange choice to replace him as Leeds manager, especially as he had been one fiercest critics both of the club and of Revie. (Many other managers, in fact, agreed with Clough's opinions in private, but few had dared to express them quite so publicly).
Clough's main weakness as a manager appears to have been his lack of tact and diplomacy. He was fond of speaking his mind, and despite winning the Championship with Derby had been ousted as manager of that club following clashes with the club chairman Sam Longson. According to this film, Clough's first act as Leeds manager was to tell his players to throw away all their medals and trophies, "because they won them by cheating". Given this attitude, it is hardly surprising that Clough was disliked by the Leeds players, most of whom had idolised Revie. They were determined not to take Clough's message of "good, clean attractive football" to heart; during his first match in charge of Leeds, the Charity Shield against Liverpool, the club captain, Billy Bremner, was red-carded for brawling on the pitch with an opponent. (He received an 11-game suspension and never played again under Clough's management). Discontent among the players was a major factor in persuading the club's directors to dismiss Clough after a run of poor results.
The film is not a comprehensive biopic of Clough; it concentrates on his brief spell at Leeds, with the story of his days at Derby being told in flashback. It does not deal with his early life or playing career at all, only briefly touches on his private life outside the game, and his successes with Nottingham Forest are only mentioned in passing in an epilogue at the end. It presents a fictionalised version of his life and occasionally takes liberties with the facts. (Contrary to the impression given here, Dave Mackay, a one-time Derby player who succeeded Clough as manager, was not on the club's playing staff at the time of his appointment).
The film's main virtues are an excellent script from Peter Morgan and some equally excellent acting. Michael Sheen seems to specialise in playing real people, and although he bears a certain physical resemblance to Clough he avoids the mistake he made when playing Tony Blair in "The Queen", that of trying to imitate his subject too exactly as though he were a Mike Yarwood-style impressionist rather than a dramatic actor. The other excellent contributions come from Colm Meaney as the self-righteous Revie, genuinely unable to understand why anyone might object to his team's playing style, from Jim Broadbent as Longson, a self-important small-town businessman who has attached himself to the town's football club despite an almost total ignorance of the game, and from Timothy Spall as Clough's assistant, Peter Taylor. Unlike Sheen and Meaney, Spall bears very little resemblance to the man he is playing, but as Taylor generally kept a much lower profile than Clough this does not really matter. Taylor, a more substantial figure than most assistant club managers, nevertheless played a key role at Derby, so he is an important character in this drama. He did not follow Clough to Leeds; had he done so, Clough's appointment might have been a greater success.
Despite its international popularity, football has inspired surprisingly few good films, and virtually no great ones. In the 2000s, however, the British cinema managed to produce two very good films about the sport, of which this is the second. (The first was "Bend It like Beckham"). The film's main appeal will, I suspect, be to sports fans and to those with an interest in football history, especially those who, like myself, are old enough to remember the events of the 1970s. Nevertheless, there is enough human drama in "The Damned United" to appeal to film-lovers who have only a passing interest in football. 8/10
