I Believe in Miracles

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES tells the story of a footballing miracle, for the most part achieved without spending vast amounts of money. In 1974 Brian Clough was sacked as manager of Leeds United after only 45 days ( a subject explored in Peter Morgan's THAT DAMNED UNITED). At a low point in an otherwise distinguished career, he took over at Nottingham Forest, then a mid-table Second Division club with few aspirations. Within a short time he not only secured promotion to the old First Division, but took the club to two consecutive triumphs in the European Champions Cup.

Jonny Owen's documentary tells this story with contributions from many of the players involved including John Robertson, John O'Hare, Archie Gemmill, Larry Lloyd, Garry Birtles and Kenneth (aka Kenny) Burns. To be honest, their comments are roughly similar in tone, attesting to Clough's remarkable skill as a person manager, allied to a naive belief that soccer is at heart a simple game played with passion and commitment. With Peter Taylor at his side (renewing a partnership that worked highly successfully at Derby County), Clough created a genuine team wherein everyone played for one another, for the most part with players who hitherto had led undistinguished careers. He did make some big-name signings such as the first £1m. transfer involving Trevor Francis, but otherwise he made effective use of low-cost players.

Clough was also a highly effective media performer. In these days of anodyne comments mediated through club media officers, it's refreshing to see just how blunt Clough actually was. He had a unique ability to answer the interviewer's' often banal questions, as well as point out the media's prejudices against Nottingham Forest for being an "unfashionable" club. On the other hand he was an incurable optimist, projecting a positive view of the future that could inspire players and viewers alike.

The story told in I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES is an effective one; the presentation less so. Director Owen's penchant for using late Seventies/ early Eighties music as a soundtrack is a good idea, but sometimes becomes intrusive, deflecting our attention away from the (highly entertaining) footage of Forest's games. The film seems too concerned to fit the narrative into wearyingly familiar tropes; hence when Forest play Cologne (Köln) in the first European Cup campaign, Owen sees the entire event as a replay of World War II - Britain against Germany - and uses the theme from THE GREAT ESCAPE. By the late Seventies memories of the War were becoming fainter and fainter as Britain tried to make its way in the EEC.

The film's ending seems somewhat rushed: we learn little about Forest's second European Cup campaign; nor do we find out about Clough's later career at Forest, when he fell out with Peter Taylor and suffered the humiliation of the club's being relegated. Nonetheless the story is an entertaining one, an evocation of a time when soccer was not the money-bloated sport it seems to be today.

Brian Clough was the great maverick English football manager of the 70's and 80's who managed the rare feat of winning the English First Division, as it was then called, twice with different teams. Moreover Clough achieved with two distinctly unfashionable teams, Derby County and Nottingham Forest. This film is concerned with his time at Forest, in particular his early years when, with his brilliant assistant manager alongside him, Peter Taylor, they transformed a side languishing in the lower regions of the second division into not only English champions, but also, even more amazingly, into twice winning the European Cup.

Unlike almost every other manager of the team, with the possible exceptions of Liverpool's Bill Shankly and Man City's Malcolm Allison, Clough was outspoken and openly courted the media. A frequent chat-show guest and TV personality of the time, he thought nothing of making provocative statements, usually on football but occasionally on social and political matters too.

It can't be stated enough just how remarkable his achievements with Forest were. Don't forget, he had arrived at Forest after a disastrous 44 day stint at champions Leeds United, later forensically documented in David Peace's book "The Damned United", later filmed, starring Michael Sheen. Even at Derby, he'd taken over a successful team which had lately won the championship under Dave Mackay, but here at Forest, after his failure at Leeds, he had almost nothing to work with, but with a series of canny signings allied to an eye for who to retain in the current squad and having reunited himself with Taylor, who'd not gone with him to Leeds, the rebuild started.

And what a rebuild it was. Within a few years his remade team of the untried and misfits was challenging the mighty Liverpool for domestic supremacy. He brought on players who had looked well past their sell-by date like defender Larry Lloyd, striker-turned-centre-back Kenny Burns and probably most importantly, mercurial winger John Robertson among others as well as nurturing young talent like strikers Tony Woodcock and Garry Birtles and midfielder Martin O'Neill. Playing a refreshing brand of attacking football but with a rock-solid defence behind them, especially after he bought England's great goalkeeper Peter Stilton, for the next few years they carried pretty much all before them.

In this candid but unusually put-together film, we get to see just what made Cloughy tick. For some reason though, the director has chosen to tell the story to a backdrop of early 70's soul records, such as the Jackson Sisters single which gives the film its name. Then, inexplicably, when the team take the obligatory bus-tour of the city with the trophy, it's with the Velvet Underground track "Rock and Roll" playing behind it. Clough was well known to be an aficionado of Frank Sinatra so I'm guessing this eclectic mix represents the director's own taste. And why the concentration on just the 1977-1978 season when they returned to win the European Cup again the next season.

Still, it was good to see so many of his old players eulogising old Bigmouth, not forgetting Taylor's massive contribution, plus the numerous football clips which show just how good they were on the pitch. My own favourite clip was the mischievous story hard man Kenny Burns told of the time he got the boss's unique sign of approval for clattering an opposition striker but there were many other entertaining bon-mots although strangely no sign of the famous clip of Clough on the training-ground "("You're a bloody disgrace!) or the man's numerous encounters with BBC commentator and great admirer John Motson.

With so many managers today who talk impenetrable jargon and quote statistics ad infinitum, this warm, loving film (there's little or no reference to his either staying just too long in the job (the team was eventually relegated on his watch, several years later) or his own fight with alcoholism, this was an enjoyable portrait of a football great, the likes of which we'll probably not see again.

Brian Clough...the man, the legend, there aren't enough documentaries or films about the tandem he and Peter Taylor formed...with the absolutely insane achievements they conquered. Absolutely impossible these days...for a team to get promoted, and then win the 1st division league, 2 league cups and 2 UCL is just the stuff dreams are made of, utterly impossible nowadays, exception made for Leicester...maybe, season ain't over yet. So the film tells the story from the main protagonists perspective, holding nothing back in a humorous tone, a journey back in time to the days of The Beautiful Game, where you really didn't need to work so much on tactics, where you could have a drink before the match, play a game after Sunday roast...the good days. An absolute feel good, whether you love football or not.

To football fans in the United Kingdom, the name Brian Clough needs no introduction or building up. Thanks to the release of The Damned United in 2009 his name got noticed outside of Britain, I Believe in Miracles is the perfect follow up to that movie, a sort of explanation as to why there has been a film and documentary about the man and his charges.

Director Jonny Owen assembles members of the great Nottingham Forest (always Notingham, never Notts) side of the late 1970s, interviews the key players and gets brilliant anecdotes out of them. Concurrently he offers up archive footage and a bitch funky period musical score. Clough is the leader, whose mantra is not one of assembling super stars, but of actually putting a team of men together and asking them to work hard, believe in themselves and be all that they can be. This is not Hollywood, every inch of this doc is true, no artistic licence here.

The team is a mixture of smokers and jokers, drinkers and jinkers, cloggers and sloggers all responding to Clough's (and his equally important side-kick Peter Taylor) less than normal football training and management methods. Everything here goes against the grain of today's football managers, I mean what manager today would run his men through nettles and then go for a pint with them afterwards?! Players smoking at half time, surely not? Wonderful. This is a true underdog story, a film for footie fans to rejoice in - regardless of who any of us in our tribal leanings support in British football. 9/10

Brian Clough's career will always hold a lot of interest for fans of British football history, and this documentary gives us another insight into the great manager. Virtually all the players make contributions, making for a more in depth study than usual of Forest's glory years.

Like others have said, it would have been interesting to have found out more about Clough's later years but understandably the makers wanted to finish on a high rather than get bogged down with his less successful later period and sad farewell.

All in all a great documentary, just a pity that it had to be saturated with an unnecessarily incessant black soul/disco soundtrack - there were other types of music in the late seventies that would have reflected Britain much better at that time - even a bit of variety would have been nice.