The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2008), is a sports biopic based on egotistical but legendary football manager Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), focusing on his horrendously brief period as the manager of Leeds United. The film encapsulates his abrasive arrogance, contempt for rival manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney) and hubristic tendencies which led to his sacking, all before he became one of the most successful football managers of all time. 

Biopics are often criticised for portraying their subjects like caricatures and condemned for coming off as a shoddy impression rather than a complete character, but the same cannot be said for Michael Sheen’s tour-de-force of a performance. What made Clough such a memorable figure was his demeanour; the articulation of his footballing philosophy with conviction and a sense of die-hardism caught the attention of an entire football-watching nation. Sheen’s mannerisms, the thick east-midlands accent, and the magnetism of his commanding physical presence all combine to capture a man who lives and breathes football.

An aspect of the film that stuck out to me is its potency in capturing the footballing scene during the 1970s. By using real football stadiums that have not been reconstructed since that decade, the film evokes a bleak, foundational yet sentimental working-class nature of football before it became the commercial enterprise we recognise today. The changing rooms are bare-boned, footballers are smoking cigarettes minutes before kick-off and the community of fans are packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the stands to support their local team. The Damned United expresses how football is tied to the roots of working-class culture, and that like Brian Clough – the sixth child of a local sweets shop worker – is a sport influenced and born out of common people.