Film of the day
Saturday, March 28, 2009 Looking forward to seeing The Damned United later today. I've just finished the book - which was a pretty dark portrait of the brilliant Brian Clough - but I understand that the film shows him in a more sympathetic light.
You might think this is a rather tenuous link, but when my parents moved to Derbyshire in 1980 I was encouraged by memories of Clough's Derby to watch his old club as often as I could. By then, of course, Clough was a two-time European Cup winner at Nottingham Forest, but his shadow was to haunt Derby for many, many years.
I could, I suppose, have driven a little further up the A52 (a stretch of which is now known as Brian Clough Way) to watch Forest, with Clough in charge, but there was something about Derby, what he achieved there, and the circumstances in which he left - that caught my imagination.
In particular, I loved the old Baseball Ground. Somehow it represented another world, a different era. I'd park my car (OK, my mother's car) on some barren wasteland behind the old Rolls Royce factory before walking half a mile to the ground which was surrounded by streets full of Coronation Street-style terraced housing. Only when you turned the final corner could you actually see this rickedy old stadium creaking under the weight of 20-30,000 people.
Unsurprisingly, in view of the rivalry exposed by David Peace's novel, one of my worst football experiences happened at a Derby-Leeds match in the early Eighties. Tickets for home supporters had sold out so I was forced to stand among the away support in a small pen at one end of the ground.
To say that some of the Leeds "fans" had no interest in the football would be an understatement. For most of the match they stood, bare-chested, with their backs to the game, taunting the Derby supporters in the stands above us. Only occasionally would they turn to watch the match, and when they did so they invariably threw something - coins, broken bottles - on to the pitch.
I have been in worse situations - at White Hart Lane, for example, fending off half bricks thrown by Arsenal fans - but I have never forgotten that afternoon at the Baseball Ground. And it may explain why, like Brian Clough in The Damned United, I too hated Leeds, and their "fans", those "cheating fucking bastards".
Simon Clark
Enjoyed the film, but I don't think it quite lives up to the hype. Like so many British films it lacks a cinematic quality - best viewed, perhaps, on television on a wet Sunday afternoon. Rod Liddle echoes my thoughts in the Sunday Times HERE.
As Rod says, I can't imagine this is a film for non-football supporters. The problem, for football supporters, is that you tend to notice when the details aren't quite right. Few of the actors, for example, look like footballers, and standing in for the Baseball Ground, which was demolished a decade ago, is the much smaller Recreation Ground (better known as Saltergate) in Chesterfield.
Funnily enough, Saltergate was the first football ground I took my son to. He was four or five, it was Boxing Day, we were staying with my parents and Derby were playing away, so we drove up to Chesterfield in search of a match.
I can't remember who they were playing but I do remember that it was very, very cold and that Saltergate, like the Baseball Ground, had an indefinable character that is missing in many modern stadiums whether it be Wembley or stadium:mk (yes, they really do call it that) in Milton Keynes.
Re-introducing some standing areas would be a start. But that's another subject for another time. For the moment I'm happy to recommend The Damned United - but lower your expectations before you go.
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