First of all I am not a football fan. By football I mean Soccer, but I am going to call it Football despite what it is called in other places. Anyway this is probably one of the best sports films I have seen ever. Michael Sheen is fantastic as the legendary english manager Brian Clough. He becomes him in this more so than most actors probably would have, I cant think of anyone who could have done better. Timothy Spall, who should be playing Watson in the new Sherlock Holmes film instead of Jude Law, plays his friend and assistant Peter Taylor. I am not totally sure how historically accurate this film is, but I found it facinating. Seeing Brian take a small team and make them big is heartwarming, and seeing him get crushed by the team he is trying to manage is sad. Brian is not a great person though, his arrogance is well known and the film shows this quite well. All the other performances are spot on, there really isn't any major problem I can think of with this film.

If you want to see one of the best Football films ever I highly recommend it. I also recommend the recent Ken Loach film Looking for eric as another great football film. This film got me interested in sports again. More so than I have been in years. I used to play football as a kid growing up near Croydon in London. Those were some of the best times of the my life. Seeing this brings back why I used to love football and sports in general. I may not get back into it, but I can now fully appreciate why Football is a beautiful and occasionaly dirty sport. But thats what life is about, the glory and the defeat. This film shows both the rise and fall of Brian Slough and I am glad it shows all parts of him. If it just showed how great he was rather than showing his bad side the film would be much worse. But we are after all defined by our flaws, sometimes more so than any other part of us. This is the first time i have been facinated by a sports film and for that I applaud it.

Overall I give it a 9.5 out of 10.