Eleven things you need to know about The Damned United
1) Michael Sheen is just like Brian Clough
2) Timothy Spall is just like Timothy Spall
3) Stephen Graham plays Billy Bremner and sounds really like him, but wears a big mad curly wig that makes him look a pirate. He’s still the best thing in it
4) Leeds were the first club to truly brand themselves. They had sock tags, names on the back of their tracksuits and the best badge ever. In the film they’re basically the Bay City Rollers with mud and violence
5) Watching The Damned United, it’s clear that life was better when footballers smoked – it made them run faster, look cooler and appear more attractive to the opposite sex. Stephen Graham’s Billy Bremner is like an iron lung with good eye/foot co-ordination
6) West Yorkshire in the 1970s was uniquely depressing. And it rained a lot. When Sheen-as-Clough turns up at Elland Road he’s like a ray of sunshine, all smiles, handshakes and wisecracks. Needless to say, the team, looking on from the training ground, absolutely hate the flash bastard
7) Colm Meaney’s Don Revie is a brooding, lumbering presence with a head that is roughly five times the size of his body. The scene where he and Clough share a TV interview immediately after Clough’s sacking as Leeds boss is brilliant. This is the actual moment (above)
8) Despite the fact that pitches were basically swamps and fans looked like roadies from a Little Jimmy Osmond concert, football was ace then. Prawn sandwiches and multi-million dollar sponsorship deals or fellas with microphones for heads in jumbo flares hitting each other on rainswept terraces? I know what I prefer.
9) The infamous 1974 Charity Shield was like two hungover jailhouse teams facing each other after learning their parole has been cancelled. The Keegan/Bremner scrap was like something out of Bonanza, though why Tommy Smith didn’t flatten Bremner is a mystery
10) Michael Sheen is really very good at football. The turn-and-volley he does on Clough’s first day of training would put the likes of journeyman no-marks like James Beattie and Harry Kewell to shame. Bet Laurence Olivier couldn’t do that
11) No-one likes Leeds, but The Damned United makes you want them back in the top flight. You cannot argue with this (above)
1) Michael Sheen is just like Brian Clough
2) Timothy Spall is just like Timothy Spall
3) Stephen Graham plays Billy Bremner and sounds really like him, but wears a big mad curly wig that makes him look a pirate. He’s still the best thing in it
4) Leeds were the first club to truly brand themselves. They had sock tags, names on the back of their tracksuits and the best badge ever. In the film they’re basically the Bay City Rollers with mud and violence
5) Watching The Damned United, it’s clear that life was better when footballers smoked – it made them run faster, look cooler and appear more attractive to the opposite sex. Stephen Graham’s Billy Bremner is like an iron lung with good eye/foot co-ordination
6) West Yorkshire in the 1970s was uniquely depressing. And it rained a lot. When Sheen-as-Clough turns up at Elland Road he’s like a ray of sunshine, all smiles, handshakes and wisecracks. Needless to say, the team, looking on from the training ground, absolutely hate the flash bastard
7) Colm Meaney’s Don Revie is a brooding, lumbering presence with a head that is roughly five times the size of his body. The scene where he and Clough share a TV interview immediately after Clough’s sacking as Leeds boss is brilliant. This is the actual moment (above)
8) Despite the fact that pitches were basically swamps and fans looked like roadies from a Little Jimmy Osmond concert, football was ace then. Prawn sandwiches and multi-million dollar sponsorship deals or fellas with microphones for heads in jumbo flares hitting each other on rainswept terraces? I know what I prefer.
9) The infamous 1974 Charity Shield was like two hungover jailhouse teams facing each other after learning their parole has been cancelled. The Keegan/Bremner scrap was like something out of Bonanza, though why Tommy Smith didn’t flatten Bremner is a mystery
10) Michael Sheen is really very good at football. The turn-and-volley he does on Clough’s first day of training would put the likes of journeyman no-marks like James Beattie and Harry Kewell to shame. Bet Laurence Olivier couldn’t do that
11) No-one likes Leeds, but The Damned United makes you want them back in the top flight. You cannot argue with this (above)
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