241 Pizza

The Damned United is the most eagerly awaited football film of all. The action segments will be a hybrid of archive footage and scenes filmed largely at Chesterfield’s Saltergate ground.

Elland Road was also used, notably for the fabled speech when Sheen tells the champions to “chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pans into the biggest f***ing dustbin you can find, because you’ve never won any of them fairly”. It is expected to be a tour de force, with Clough portrayed as a more rounded figure than the embittered avenger of the book.

Fittingly, given the confrontational nature of the protagonist, the shoot was not trouble-free. “I took the coaching sessions down on Regent’s Park and I think I slagged off Archie Gemmill,” Clifford said. “When it came to the fight scene he came straight for me, but unfortunately I stood on his foot and he ended up in hospital with two broken toes. That was three days in.”

It was also not good for their health. Another scene involved players walking on to a Wallace Arnold bus while puffing away on cigarettes. “I got through 40 fags one day,” Clifford, aka Jones, said. “The detail was great, though. I looked like a mod in the Sixties and John Travolta in the Seventies.

“Unfortunately, I think the real Mick Jones will come after me when he sees the film because I was 16 stone at the time.” He has since been on the cabbage soup diet, which Sheen said he used to lose weight to play Kenneth Williams.

Clifford helped Sheen with his accent, pointing out the differences between Teesside and Wearside and even the variants within Middlesbrough.

The film has a classy pedigree. The cast includes Jim Broadbent and Timothy Spall, the script was written by Peter Morgan, who worked with Sheen in adapting his own play, Frost/Nixon, and Andy Harries has produced everything from The Royle Family to The Queen. As for authenticity, Stuart Gray, the former Celtic full back, should know the nuances of Eddie Gray given that the erstwhile winger is his father.

Peace’s commitments meant that he resisted the option to pen the screenplay, but intriguingly this may not be the end of his relationship with Clough. Clifford revealed that one of Peace’s future projects could touch on him again. Then there is the one about Geoffrey Boycott.

For now, football awaits the release of a film that seems destined to rattle bone and fray nerve like a Billy Bremner welcomer. At the very least, it should put Clough back into the spotlight and be better than Escape to Victory.

Dramatis personae

Brian Clough (Michael Sheen): Led Nottingham Forest to two European Cups and won the league with Derby County. Always controversial, he twice resigned at the Baseball Ground. Had a brief spell at Brighton & Hove Albion before an incendiary 44 days at Leeds United. Died in 2004.

Don Revie (Colm Meaney): A former Footballer of the Year who invented the so-called Revie Plan, he is still revered in Leeds for overseeing the glory days. His legacy is tainted by allegations of bribery, the gamesmanship employed by his team and because he quit managing England for a lucrative job in the Middle East. Died of motor neurone disease in 1989.

Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall): A former team-mate of Clough at Middlesbrough, then his assistant at Hartlepool United, Derby, Brighton and Forest. A fallout with Clough led to a bitter feud that was unresolved by the time of his death in 1990.

Billy Bremner (Stephen Graham): Rejected by Arsenal and Chelsea for being too small, succeeded Bobby Collins as the Leeds captain. Famously clashed with Dave Mackay and later managed the club. Died in 1997 and is immortalised in bronze outside Elland Road.

Johnny Giles (Peter McDonald):

A wonderfully gifted midfield schemer who came to prominence at post-Munich Old Trafford, his partnership with Bremner was the core of Leeds’s success under Revie. When Revie left, he recommended Giles for the job, but the board chose Clough. Became a newspaper columnist.

Sam Longson (Jim Broadbent): The Derby chairman was prepared to lock horns with Clough. Derby reached the semi-finals of the European Cup but, two months into the next season, their relationship in tatters, there was a parting of the ways.

Words by Rick Broadbent

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football