NFR: Football Movies / Documentaries

[Logicalman]

Recently watches three such items:

The Four Year Plan:
All about the take over of QPR by Flavio Briatore, Bernie Ecclestone & the Mittal family.
Interesting fly-on-the-toilet-wall perspective, with plenty of swearing and behind-the-scenes back stabbing going on. Shows how Briatore runs the club, and the match day manager, from the back room. Only once he steps down as Chairman does the  R's start actually playing well, and shows how crap Sousa was as a manager, and how well Warnock did. Interesting view for those interested in seeing the guts of what happens behind the scenes.

The Football Factory:
Hard-hitting realistic enactments of the bad old days of hooliganism. The story follows the Chelsea firm, as viewed from one of their members, as they travel away to various venues, arrange certain encounters and finally meet up with the Millwall Firm. Interesting watch, does bring back some bad memories of away days, especially one at West Ham, and the wife was a little shocked that this wasn't based on pure fiction.

One Night in Turin:
Excellent review of the period in the England National teams attempts to capture the 1990 World Cup. Shows, without glorifying, the hooligan element that caused English football to be regarded as the pits, and the fans facing bans from European and world travel.
Two big take-aways for me: 1. The passion shown by the fans and the players brings home why this is Englands true sport, and 2. Gazza, and why he will always be a loved, tragic, figure. When got that second yellow, the viewer can feel his pain at what it could mean. I guess I have plenty of time for this guy, and he epitomizes what passion for the game really is.



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[cheerupjimmyhill]

Watched the Laurie Cunningham documentary the other night.......

What a great player he was but a very sad ending.

Perhaps i was too young at the time but did not realise how good this guy was but perhaps he didn't get the coverage he merited because it was the early days of black players.

Whatever reason the guy was mesmerizing at times and got transferred to Madrid (not a great Madrid team at the time but still Madrid) but still did  very well there until injury etc.

Also very iconic this English black guy wearing the all white strip of Real Madrid,

[Stefano Okaka Chuka]

I watched the Four Year plan too a couple of weeks ago and it really shows why QPR was a shambles of a club. Anyone knows what a [CENSORED!] Briatore is and you could really see it in the documentary. Also, Damiano Tommasi played his latter part of his career there and you can see how Briatore was constantly moaning he wasn't in the team. A proper snake in the grass, no wonder he is now head of the italian PFA with all his bollocks about religion and having his salary cut to 1500 euros when at As Roma... By the way, I thought the documentary was frustrating at times, because of the montage, you sense while watching it that you are missing important bits here and there...

Yesterday, I watched possibly the most awful movie about football hooliganism ever produced by mankind. It was "Arrivederci Millwall". I don't know why I even bothered to watch all the abysmal clichès that were scattered through this 60 minutes long horror of a movie.

[muiscatron]

This one is a bit different, falls into the "art film" category but is still fascinating to see a truly great player go about his business. And it has twist at the end, unusual for a documentary. Great soundtrack by Mogwai is what makes it though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zidane:_A_21st_Century_Portrait

[Jack Fulham]

I recently watched The Two Escobars, an amazing story but very sad what happened and how it all ended, I didn't realise Colombia were that good but I suppose it was before my time. The whole thing is on youtube if you ever want to watch it.

The Two Escobars (full)

[Travers Barney]

Watched the Laurie Cunningham documentary the other night.......

What a great player he was but a very sad ending.

Perhaps i was too young at the time but did not realise how good this guy was but perhaps he didn't get the coverage he merited because it was the early days of black players.

Whatever reason the guy was mesmerizing at times and got transferred to Madrid (not a great Madrid team at the time but still Madrid) but still did  very well there until injury etc.

Also very iconic this English black guy wearing the all white strip of Real Madrid,

Agree seemed a classy fellow did Laurie...

Petchey was very candid about Cunningham and the treatment he received from the Millwall fans..seem to recall he became the Lions Manager later?..maybe my memory but I seem to recall their fans chanting for his head at our place back in the early 80's

coyw