Final Thoughts and Future Film Club

I'm now hand you over to my best man, Eddie. Wow, wow, wow, second time's a charm, eh, Billy Boy. Oh, God. Substitution curse of Patty Power. Embarrassing Eddie makes way for sensible Samuel. Cool, that was close. You might not always pick the right starter, but your sub can still deliver. Because with Patty's super sub, your bet rolls over to the player coming on. Patty Power! Valid on selected leagues and markets only. Pre-match and in play bets on qualifying player outcome selections only. TC and C's and exclusions apply. ScammerAware.org. Shouldn't you be at home? the seagull follows a chora. It's because they think so jeans will be strong into the sea. I will love it if we beat them. Love it. I'll have a low-fat pizza or something like that or a few biscuits and some milk on a Sunday. And you can pair up if you like, and you can fucking pick someone else to go and you can bring your fucking dinner. Pannister and Bruce in the queue again. Bruce! Let's go! Now you know him better than anybody, probably. Do you back him to score quickly, yes or no? Yes. Oh no! Hello and welcome to the first ever episode of the Quickly Kevin Film Club. I'm Chris Gold. Joining me Josh Wittercom. Hello. And a man equally as respected in the film industry as Eric Cantanal. It's Mr. Michael Marden. Hello. Would you consider Eric Cantanal's film career a success? Um I wouldn't say it was a disaster. No, I I I wouldn't say that you'd know much about it if he wasn't Eric Cantonal. But I think it would be considered a success because people would have presumed it would be so bad. If you know what I mean. Yeah. So what have we watched for the first Critic Kevin Film Club Scott? We have watched 1996 classic by the name of When Saturday Comes starring Sean Bean. Lifelong Sheffied fan from a family that's fairly hard done by, is by all accounts a very talented footballer, but for whatever reason it doesn't work out for him. He finds himself at a brewery, but then apparently goes on a great run for his kind of pub team, gets noticed by non league. And then eventually gets a trial with Sheffield United. And that story continues from there. I find it astonishing. My first observation would be I find it astonishing that it was made in nineteen ninety six. You think it feels older than that? Well, the opening shots look like a Hovis advert. Yeah, that was my that was my exact note. That that sort of Cpia toned Sheffield back streets. It looks like the fifties. That shot sets the tone, I think, for a lot of what is to come creatively in the film. It's essentially like an identicate of really tired Cliched genre conventions. Yeah, it's kind of it's a gritty eighties drama, isn't it? That's kind of got football laid over it. Yeah. Were it made in the sixties, like Albert Finney would have been in it, a sort of Saturday night, Sunday morning type vibe, the small town boy who's got talent but no dedication. the disapproving parent, he's got a dead end job. Like they're all there. All of those stock characters. I think if if I was to sum up the the film. It would be the opening dialogue of the film. Between him and the teacher. Between him and his teacher on the last day of school. Yeah. The teacher says You got two choices. Go down pit or work in factory. And he says, But sir, I want to be a footballer. Writing is rewriting, guys. Surely that. Surely. Do you know the working title for the film? No. Pint of bitter. No. That was what the film was doing. So I guess it's a play on Pints of bitter, but also pints of everyone's bitter. I d I I was thinking about that. Talking of titles I was gonna come to this, but uh I was fascinated because when Saturday comes is I mean what is is it a sort of idiom or a colloquialism, but it's it's a phrase that I don't think translates to outside of the UK in terms of sort of football and what it means. And I've always been fascinated by like the foreign language names for films when they repackage them and sell them to foreign territories. So I did a bit of research and tried to sort of find out what this film would have been called abroad. Bulgaria. It was called When the Sabbath Comes. In uh in Finland. Saturday is game day. In Greece, the day of the race. Uh in Italy. Saturday in the ball. What and uh in Russia just the very efficient Penalty. Oh to what li what extent do those markets have the licence to do what they want? Is the filmmaker involved in the changing of those names, Michael, you know that. Yeah, quite often it's the sales agent and the marketing team. They'll they'll essentially say, We can sell it for more money if it's called this when we put this on the poster and then they they take care of it. I can I ask a question, I don't actually know what so what does the phrase when Saturday comes mean? I suppose it'll be we'll all see what happens when Saturday comes. Do you know what I mean? That's what's important is when Saturday comes, I suppose. I can't really distance it from the excellent football magazine, which I think is my favourite football publication, but it also You know, that must have been named after the phrase, but no one would ever say it now, would they? I mean, I I I haven't heard it outside of the context of talking about this horrible Sean Bean film we're about to discuss. So do you both think it's a terrible film? Well actually, I don't think it's that bad. We've just discussed the opening sequence of the Cpia tone kid doing keepy up, he's the really overly long credits that from films don't seem to have any more. And then that really on the nose comment from his teacher. I thought this is gonna be rubbish, but actually it isn't that bad. It's okay. Yeah. It's got problems, but it's it was entertaining. Michael? I think objectively it's a terrible film, but it is it's very watchable and very enjoyable in spite of that. I think you can't underestimate Sean Bean is is really good. Sean Bean is a good actor. He's just Sean Bean in this, isn't it? No, but I mean flexing his money. No, no, no, I'm not saying it's it's a an astonishing performance, but he's a he's a very watchable actor. particularly when you see him surrounded by some of the other characters. You realise how good Sean Bean is and how much star quality he has. Compare to for instance Every other actor in it. So he starts it's his final day of school, Jimmy Muir, and he's got a younger brother. Um how would you describe the younger brother character? He's kind of a nerd, isn't he? bit wet. He's like a he's a bit wet. He's a bit wet and he's very kind of happy go lucky and he kind of worships Jimmy. And the opening shot after Jimmy's had this discussion with the teacher about how um He wants to be a footballer. is something that happens always in films and TV that I've never seen in real life. Which is the bell ringing. And then all the children running out of school. Yeah. That's never happened in real life. There was no kind of break for freedom at the end of school. You'd kind of amble away because you're a surly teenager. Then you get into the pub and Jimmy And his brother have gone to buy Uh each by a pint of bitter at sixteen. Yeah. And this is the first instance of a real stereotyping of stock characters. And it's it's the bucks and barmaids. Who knows that these children are underage. You know, you just look at them. They are young teenagers. And she just doesn't give a shit. She just serves them alcohol. I mean, I vaguely remember this growing up in the nineties. There was one pub on the Isle of Wight that was notorious for not IDing. So every Friday night you'd go and it would just be teenagers pretending to be men ordering pints of fosters. And then once the police crack down that place, it went out of business in about six weeks because because no one went there. Like did you guys have Barmaids or bartenders or pubs like that growing up where you were? Snooker clubs. I used to go to Snooker Club and they would kind of like just serve you. The first time I ever went to a park and bought a pint. We went to the part we're like, Okay, kind of like you Ging each other up for it. We went in there, we said like two pints of lager, whatever, got the lag. We're like, I can't believe we did it. Took a sit. And one of the other barmen's come round the bar, just took it out of our hands and said, get out. Took this brief moment where we thought we'd done it. And then VAR. Oh I think particularly in in the centre of Sheffield, which this is sad. be a lot more difficult than say where I grew up, where I think pubs slightly operate it by their own rules a bit more in the countryside. Do you know what I mean? But a pub in the centre of Sheffield. What I have ever told you about when I was going to the lake district and I had to get the train there and then I was going to get a taxi, but I had to kill twenty minutes, so I went into this kind of pub that was quite rough. It was a Friday afternoon and there was just two people in there, the barmaid and the cleaner. And then one of them kind of recognized me from TV. And the one that didn't recognize me said, um I now they were like, Oh, we're from us like London and she went So I suppose you've met the Queen? That is the line of dialogue that wouldn't be out of place. It's film at all. I was astonished by how much they played up that sort of north south divide. Then you kind of after the pint you see him in his work and he works in a factory for a brewery. He very quickly cuts from sort of that young Jimmy to old Jimmy with no sense of how much time has passed. Like I had no, it didn't it didn't say five years later, ten years later. So my only gauge was to look at how old Sean Bean was. when he made this film and using it as properly in his basically he was thirty six years old when this film was made. So I'm gonna assume that's his age. I don't think it is though, 'cause he says He says he's been working at the brewery for ten years, so I think you ought to presume that he's twenty six. Well, Sean Bean's first scene in the movie when he comes out of young Jimmy Moore is kinda him walking down home from the brewery and then the kids in the street like Come on, Jimmy, play football with us and you're like How old is he that these kids he's playing with the kids in the street. And then he goes into his house and you see Sean Bean's character's mum for the first time. And she is the same age as Sean Bean. There is no I couldn't understand the casting was like is that his wife or that's his mum? She's the same age as him, clearly. Um I was so confused. The first scene in the factory is some of the worst banter I've ever heard in my life. So there's a guy looking at a copy of the presumably the Sun. He says page three's a nice piece today. And then he said this whole sequence. Wouldn't mind giving her one. No one has ever said. But also that's the second laddie reference because when he when the young Jimmy Moore sees the box and bar made, he just turns to his brother and goes, look at the tits on that. And you're like, oh my God. And then this page she things happen. I was like, whoever wrote this is the most sexy. Another one says, forget about getting your leg over with her. Get in your leg over. The people I mean the ha the whole film is littered with sexist stuff. And so I was thinking, well, this is like a this is totally in the male gaze. But then you know, it's a r female writer director, Maria Geist. who's now a big advocate for kind of pay parity for women directors in Hollywood. So it's actually entirely a kind of female written production and directed. And yet it is fact full of so much sexism. You couldn't do this now. The sexism dates it. I I think the problem with it is is You could argue you're trying to kind of show what the uh obviously I d I hold my hands up that I don't know what the dialogue was like in a Burry in Sheffield in the mid nineties, but I don't think that you're making any of the surrounding characters to Sean Bean anything other than very dislikable. Yeah. Well I I was fascinated by that same thing, so I sort of did a bit of digging into the writer director. And um she's born in Peter Rico, lived in uh LA, but her husband was from the north of England. And and a lot of this film is allegedly based on things that happen to him in his life. He was a sort of semi pro footballer, had trials for Huddersfield, didn't quite make it. So she kind of mined a lot of his life. And I imagine some of these kind of scenarios, but then gave it what she thought was a, you know a Hollywood spin. So there is a sort of a lack of credibility or an insincerity to these scenes that are sort of set. in a world that you normally go, Oh, this feels authentic. This is almost like a film version of the Steve Bruce novels where someone has a little bit of knowledge about a thing, but to anyone that has even more knowledge than that, you're like, This is so transparently not what would happen in that situation. I was thinking about this earlier, I was thinking I think that might be the eternal problem with films about football or sport really in general. If ever I watch anything set in comedy. I think but that's not how it works. I think anything that you watch that is set in a world that you're very familiar with. Due to the shorthand of making a film, it's going to ring numerous alarm bells with you. We've discussed that a lot before, and I I thought this film was gonna get it right, and we'll come to it, because when we first see him playing Sunday League pub football this is the most realistic depiction of Sunday League football I've ever seen. on It looks good the football because you haven't got that thing where you often have where people are like jumping out the way when they're doing tackles and stuff. It's the most realistic look of football. I've seen on something. When you s when you see Sean Bean running. You can tell he's not a footballer. You can't teach that. Those those footballing sequences, it's clear that these aren't just the like the nuances of the movements. I don't know. He's good at keeping up. I thought he'd be good at football as well, but what I imagine it's like If one of us had to pretend to be a cowboy. They could teach us to ride a horse. But to anyone that can really ride a horse, you'd be like that six weeks ago. There's not a s there's not a comfort. I comfortably think that Sean Bean is a better footballer than all three of us. Yeah. So back to the factory, I think we should introduce uh the love interest. Um just before that, I think there's the c there there's the comment that someone makes about some woman, one of the laddies says to Jimmy Moore That girl over there's got boobs like a bag full of ferrets. What is that? He's talking about her bum. He's talking about her bum. Her bum moves like a bag full of ferrets. But I couldn't tell whether that was a compliment or not. Is it? But they say it like it is. Search your partners and see how well it goes down. That's actually for everyone at home and let us know correspondence wise. Um, but then the love interest comes in, Emily. She's played by the actress Emily Lloyd. She's Irish. She's she's got ambitions beyond the factory that she's working in on the payroll. Uh, she wants to move to London and she wants to go to university. Her name's uh Annie Dockerty. And um if we could just touch on her Irish accent quickly. It was so bad, her first line read, Irish line read, that I started laughing and then I looked into the sort of character. Is it one of those ones where she had a dialogue coach and she just couldn't nail it? And then this is what I found on IMDb, okay? Emily Lloyd was originally cast in that role with a northern accent. But that was so unconvincing. It was then changed to an Irish accent. Now what I want to know is how bad did her northern accent have to be that her Irish accent was considered the lesser of those two evils? But also like if you if you're messing around with accents that much, just Usually the one you talk with. Then um he gets a date with her and um he makes her talk Irish to him and it's awful. Can we talk about the score? Not as in football, but as in The music. 'Cause the music underneath every romantic scene. Is like something from Kind of golden age of Hollywood kind of brief encounter style. Yeah. But it's like so inappropriate for the scene that you're watching. It is like a nineteen fifties melodrama. Yeah. Tonally it is insane. I noticed during the lovemaking scene there was candles lit on the side. During the love making scene when he he works in a brewery, he gets the necklace out of his pocket. This really symbolic necklace. It's one of the most unromantic things I've ever seen in my life. Not in a way in which they're intending to show like a romance, but as in a way it just It failed to pull on any kind of emotional heft. Have you ever given a a loved one, a partner, or even a family member a gift that you know quite clearly they don't like, but they don't want to be rude or offend you. So they'll sort of go, Oh yeah, it's it's lovely. That that is the reaction she gets, but what's quite damning is I don't think that's reaction she's supposed to give in the film. I think she's supposed to have enjoyed the gift. Is that is that seriously the best take you had? Well I did know she's wear she wears this like necklace throughout the film. Oh does she? Like I don't I think I'm pretty sure she doesn't take it off. Um so after that we get the Pete Possil throat character turns up. It is kind of. Uh lower league scout. No, he's sorry, it's a manager of a lower but a higher league than Sean Bean. Hallam Hallam F C. So like Sean Bean's playing for a pub team at this point and he's kinda yeah, lower league. Yeah. Uh possibly just below the conference, I'd say. I the first cut away you get of him watching um Sean Bean play football. He's wiping his nose. And you're like I d it doesn't come up that he's got like got a cold or anything. And you're like, So was that the best shot you got? Was that Pete Boss surely got a shot where he isn't wiping his nose as his own. And as Pete Possite goes to scout uh eventually scout Sean Bean, is it like he stumbled upon the game? Like he was just out. And he noticed it. Like isn't why isn't Pete Posswight thinking This guy's nearly forty. What like What can he possibly do to my team? He signs him Based on what I can tell is like three minutes of scouting on a bog on a s rainy Sunday. think as well, like I wanna make a point uh over the course of this podcast about The length of time given to various points in his career. And so I'd say at this point we're thirty minutes in. And he's just been scouted playing for a pub team. And it's in it's ninety minutes this so we've got a third of the way in, and he's just now being noticed playing well for a pub team. Well one of my favorite things on that um on Pete Pussel say uh Ken Jackson his character name is uh Throughout the film, it doesn't matter when in the film you see him. He is always wearing his manager's tracksuit. There's a scene later on and from what I can tell it's like it's quite late at night. And Pete's at home on his own making a cup of tea. Like before bed, it looks like Sean Bean turns up to sort of ask some advice or get him to you know, we won't reveal the plot point. And he's still there in his manager's two piece. He's like a cartoon character. Cartoon character is always drawn in the same place. Who would you say he most kind of resembled in like who do you think their outfit was modelled on? Who did the like the kind of costume designer take photos of? I am gonna say Alan Ball. And it's it's really Alan Ball. Yeah. Um so like Sean Bean plays well. I want to talk about the bath scene. So Sean Bean gets kind of jumps in the bath, they're all celebrating, and there's a kind of full on cock shop. Sean Bean's knob. Oh, is that I missed that? Did you spot that? No. It's incredible. And you think Wha why is Sean being giving away the goods, you know, on when Saturday comes in an inconsequential bath state? You can even do that in Game of Thrones, which has got n notorious amount of nudity. Um, I know we talk about this a lot. But it really hammered home to me how little I'd like the communal bath as a footballer. What if Sean Bean's um teammates gets in the communal bath with his studs on. I'd be fuming. I just think it's the worst element of being a footballer is the communal bath. When do you think the last communal bath was in fo in Premier League football? They're still going Bournemouth. Bournemouth probably still knows. Obviously you couldn't do it in the car with the boxes. So, Michael, what happens next? Uh so then he is given he basically signs for Hallam F C, plays a game for them under the lights, does really, really well. I think he scores but he he scores a goal. And what I really enjoyed was He scores it s inside the six yard box. It's not a you know, a a screamer. And within one second, every single one of his players surrounds him. Sort of suggests tactically and positionally these guys have no idea what they're doing. Why was the entire team able to get to him that quickly? It's like a school playground, everyone just running around after the ball. And then um Pete Postlethwaite takes him aside and he's got a trial. He's got a trial for Sheffield United. Can I just point out, just before Pete Bathwaite offers him the trial for uh Sheffield United, you get quite a bit of um Jimmy Moore slash Sean Bean's dad, who's a bit of a bit of a drinker, doesn't treat the mum particularly well, he bets a lot, and he's got male pattern baldness, the the character of the dad. But the actor, John McHenry, has clearly they've clearly just shaved his head. into male pattern borders. And y you really notice this film, you watch it back. But you can see he's got stubble. on the middle bit where it's supposed to have mail pattern boards and you can see Like the the bits of hair, the tufts around the sides that he's had to grow. And and I got so deep into that, I was like, Oh my God, they like he's got stubble where he's meant to be bald. And John McHenry, the actor, did have hair at this point. That's exactly what they've done. They've shaved him into male. I'd say I'd say he's the most two dimensional character in the history of film. The bad dad. The dad's awful. He wants his son to fail. He's a gambler. He's stealing money off his wife. Unrepentant bad egg. There's also talking of unrepentant bad egg. I just realised there's When he gets the trial, there's then this guy that doesn't like him. Who's also in the team. who kinda says you don't deserve the trial and Shaw mean headbuts him. What I love about that guy is he clear is one of those people where he turns up and you go, Well that guy there's no way that guy would pass as even a Sunday league footballer. So they've had to cast someone who can vaguely act to be his sort of like rival within the squad. Talking of footballers or actors, are you aware of the big bit of trivia about who how they cast this? No. No. So the captain of Sheffied. Oh, I do know this. Yeah, I know that. I well I the the other thing just before you get to that is He says after that game, um, Ken tells him that Tony Curry was there and wants to give him a trial. And at this point you have no idea who Tony Curry is. Like it hasn't been mentioned. And I was like, Okay, well who who is Tony Curry? I'm gonna assume that that's the person that is the Sheffield United manager, 'cause that's where the story's building to. Which would have been at the time probably Dave Bassett or Howard Cal. But you're thinking, why is the manager of Sheffied scouting a non league football game? Like they're in the first division at that stage and it's midway through the season. He's not searching for a sort of mid thirties. winger to improve his the promotion. It's so weird. Because that's the problem with it as a football thing, is that it all moves too fast. Yeah. But it it it's the that Tony Curry is the Tony Curry. What do you mean? Well he's a Leeds and Sheffield United legend. That guy played the guy who's the manager of Sheffield United played for England seventeen times in real life. Well not the one that was um not the one that ran the pub in Hollyoaks, though. The manager of Sheffield United in this is also later in Hollyoaks running the pub, but I think there's two managers. Is Tony Curry the one who looks like the blonde one. Yeah, he looks like Bradley Walsh with frosted tips, basically, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. So he's the a real person called Tony Curry. Yes, yeah. He's a Sheffi a bit of a Shepherd United legend. Right. That's a deep cut, isn't it? 'Cause if I don't know that. How many people are gonna know that Tony Curry. I didn't even realise that Tony Curry was a thing until I saw the credits that said Tony Curry, played by Tony Curry. And it was at that point I was like, who's Tony Curry? I'd be much more excited if it had been Mark Curry. It would have made more sense and have been able to work out. I was Tim Carrie if we've got a push it. Either would have done for me. Um, so then um he gets his trial with Sheffield United. Um There's then a weird scene in the bookies. Uh where he uh He wins a thousand pounds on a horse. Which I don't understand what the relevance of this scene to the 'Cause his dad's like a a problem gambler. He's a gambling addict, who's losing the family's money to to gambling. And then Sean Bean. puts a load of money on a horse, wins, gives a load of money to his brother and his mum. And you're like So what's the moral of this bit? Oh, if you're a good person you can gamble your way out of financial problems, but if you're not, you can't. I don't understand. You kind of you get ten minutes of this scene. You got 10 minutes of the kind of the pine-in-pub right at the start. That twenty minutes could be so much better used later on in the field as the story of his football career progresses that you don't see. Yeah. The sort of human interest stuff in the middle in that second act is really flabby. In the in a very short space of time. girlfriend announces she's pregnant. Yeah he wins that money on the horses. When he's in the pub with his mates, I'm gonna say it, there's a lot of toxic masculinity in his way there. Like I I think he really needs to get some new friends. Yeah, whenever he's in the pub with his mates, they're all w wearing like blazers and ties and shirts. Is that what people used to make? I know, I was fascinated by that. I they've obviously made that decision based on something. But like I don't remember a time in the nineties when people used to go out dressed like they were doing a job interview. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean they force him to have a whiskey in that pub, even though they know well, you can never know. Some of them seem to know he's got a trial. and others he seems to keeping it a secret from. That's not very clear. But they force him to have a whiskey. And then there's a hard cut. what I presume is like four or five hours later, and they're in a strip club. And there's a a strip of Sheffield tattoo. On her bum. that he's getting off with. It's like I've only ever seen things escalate that quickly for comedic purposes. It it feels like A a scene where he's gonna go, I he' not getting me to that strip club, hard cut. He's in the strip club. Just before the strip club he goes to see a flat with his girlfriend, who's like, No, I want you to settle down, go to this flat. And they end up having a big row in the flat, like the flat's very nice. It's kind of implied the flat is in a bit of a state of disrepair, that it's not very nice. But the only thing you can see that kind of tells you that is the fact the sofa's upside down. And then then they're having this big row like row in the flat with all like kind of all the lights turned off and I just I was just like, where's the estate agent? And then just giving them the keys and they've just gone in there to have a row. But then like I said, yeah, five minutes later he was in the strip club. So the strip club is an awful scene. It's dreadful. It shows him in such a bad light. I know it's like sucking boobs as well. Yeah, I'm like at that point I was like, I thought this was a football film. Like there's so little football I've seen a pub game at this point. Yeah, and and so that he then ends up sleeping with a stripper. This is when his life goes crazy. He's got a second trial at Sheffield. I was kinda hoping the film would end then. So then he's got his second trial at Sheffield United. Now I know I've already said about You you spot things when you're interested in a topic or you're familiar with it. The trials are during winter we can tell that from the weather. They're consecutive Saturdays at eleven AM on the pitch of Bramall Lane. Which seems utterly mad to me. His trial is four hours before the kickoff of the game and the ground the game's happening. I mean, I'm gonna say it. This is for me from here on. the film just really derails in terms of any what little credibility it had based on the world of football. Every single scene, it just bit on you like, I'm sorry, water. The football element of it. The the football 'cause he he he I think we should just quickly say so he he has the trial for Sheffield United and he he blows it. 'cause he had gone out and got too drunk and slept with a stripper, so he's late, he's hung over. basically bin him off. And it really embarrasses Pete Possalthwaite as well. He's humiliated that he brought this trialist along and that he's just so drunk he couldn't even play. Yeah. And then um his life goes awfully because he loses his job. He punches the brewery foreman, his girlfriend finds out about the stripper. And then worst of all, his brother Russ has his football program sold by his dad. And you knew this was a chance this would happen, as in like the second scene, Russ and uh Sean Bean have a discussion about Him not selling the football programs. You we would never dare sell the football. I was like, what is gonna happen to these football programs? Sure enough, the deadbeat dads flogged them. A football program's still a collectible thing now. I remember buying them all in the nineties when we went to our garland stuff, but obviously you needed them in those days because you didn't have the teams written down. But like those collectors and stuff, this kid is a proper collector of football program. Is that still a thing? Well, this is interesting. In the film they have uh um Sean Bean gives him a the the program for the nineteen sixty six World Cup final as like like the kind of crown jewel of his collection of programmes. How much do you think an original nineteen sixty six World Cup final program is going for right now on eBay? Oh no. Three hundred and fifty pounds. Right now with three days left, isn't it up for thirty six quid. Not a lot. Why would you say money in football programs? I don't think there's What you've got to remember is probably they've probably sold at least sixty or seventy thousand of them. And everyone that bought one on the day was ful that that's not something you throw away. Do you know what I mean? It's like It's like when I bought that World Cup Night sticker and it was thirty quid and you're like I presume this would be worth good. Ten thousand pounds. So so this is everything's at a low point. He's going to see his brother Whose works in the pit. Can we talk about that? I made a note of the dialogue. So the little kid at the bus is kind of smiling at him and the kid goes I'm going to visit my granddad, and Sean Bean replies, That's nice. And the kid goes, Andy's got some sweets for me. I I just thought it was gonna be more relevance to it. The only logic I could think was that Was that supposed to sort of turn him round on the idea of wanting to have a kid. Like if this sort of sweet kid offered him some sweets and suddenly his view on being a parent had shifted, 'cause there was just no logic for it at all. No, it was absolutely bizarre. But then the f you kinda forget that 'cause then he gets to the pit. And there's an ambulance there and there's been an accident and I actually think this is the best bit of the film. um his brother has been killed in the pit. And Sean Bean does have quite an emotional scene where he cries next to a railway track. So I thought didn't really fit in with the rest of the film in terms of tone, in that he actually does a very good performance. of a man having a breakdown on a railway track comparatively Shape. the stripper scene that had preceded it by five minutes. I mean there there's literally five minutes between him sucking on the boom of a stripper and trying himself out of a train. Um can I say as well that as he's walking down the train tracks, you can see the train coming behind him at a snail's pace. Yeah. And then it's cut with the a train going really fast, then back to Sean Bean with the train literally creeping up behind it. He could ac like it's going so slow you can clear see he can outrun them train. Then you get this brothers the brother's funeral where they're all stood around the coffin being lower into the ground and Sean Beans kind of stood away. I don't kind of understand why, maybe just because he can't deal with it. But they cut to Sean Bain. And he's just stood next to a skip. Not even a wicker one. Not even a wicker one. And you're like, why are you st I know he's stood away, but he wouldn't be just stood next to the skip. It's like at every point they need to say this man's life is bleak. Um and then we hit the bit where he starts turning around, turning it around. He goes to Pete Posselthwaite's house. he knocks on the door. And and at at this point you realise that Pete Potthothwaite is a total rip off of Mickey from Rocky. Yeah. And Pete Baswell, the way he is like you say, he's in that coat. He's drinking from a Sheffield United mug, and he's staring at a collection of trophies, which are the kind of trophies you'd amass when you're eleven years old, like third best at the scout tournament. His living room is like 90% trophies. And you're kind of wondering, how is his wife putting up with this? Also like, how has he won that many? There's gotta be some really arbitrary trophies in that collection. Yeah, the next six or seven minutes are essentially if Rocky is the kind of Harrods of montage sequences, the next six or seven minutes are like the Tesco owned brand version. I enjoyed uh him. practicing his keep ups in the fog. That was a nice bit of the montage. He was actually good at Shube is good at keeping up as running around some cones as if that's gonna improve. But it's what would you do with a footballing montage? Because there's very little that one man can do on his own to get better at football. I'll tell you what I wouldn't do, and that's that's a scene in the allotment. I don't know if you remember that, where he's um he's sort of like running sideways, zig zagging between these are like dividers. There's a chair at the other end. He runs round the chair and runs back, but instead of running through He does something that I've I've never seen or been asked to do during any football training match ever, which is he tells a series of what can only be described as like bunny hops over the markers. I was like What the he why is he doing that? And then I thought all the marrows in the elongate. Well I thought uh Maybe and I think you'd mentioned this on a previous pod, Josh, that the Mexican player Blanco. Remember his trademark movie? Maybe Sean Bean was just a massive fan of Mexican football. And then so he does he kind of gets his life back on track. And he gets another trial with Sheffield United. And this is where the film Speeds up. to a level I couldn't believe. So now I'd say what what we got left of the film? Twenty minutes if that so he he does the trial and then next thing you know He's on the bench for Sheffield United. Yeah. Like we've had seventy minutes of almost inconsequential football. And now the real story, the bit you want to know where he starts stepping up like like playing it like an elite level. See him doing the trial. And then it hard cuts. to him being on the bench for Sheffied. And there's only two on the bench in those days, or three, including the goalkeeper. You go, well, being on the bench is a hell of an achievement here. but it's treated like he's disappointed. Despite passing a trial coming from non-league into division one. He's disappointed he hasn't got straight into the first eleven. I know. Can we also talk about Mel Sterland? Yeah, I think that this is the time. So Mel Sterland is the captain of Sheffield United, Mel Stirland, who I'm vaguely remember playing for Leeds when they won the league. Yeah. Mel Stirland. Looks old in this. And then Wikipedia most uh then. And he's primarily I didn't know this 'cause it's before my time. Primarily famous for playing three hundred games for Sheffi Wednesday. He never played for Sheffied. Oh wow. Yeah, but he's kind of the the captain of Sheffield United in this. And he's a bit of a baddy figure. He doesn't think Sean Bean's good enough to play for them. Yeah. He's fuming. Yeah. Like dispropor like unprofessionally fuming that he's he's having to play. Even like we know for a fact Ali died didn't even have this kind of poor treatment from his teammates. But uh Mel Sterling is giving both barrels to Shore Bean. Yeah. I've got a lot to say on him when we get to the semi final. But for now, Sheffield United versus Arsenal. It cuts to a sort of shot of the the team sheet and the the date. And it's uh Sath Saturday, eighteenth of March, nineteen ninety five, it says. And this is for me, this is where the film really starts to come apart. We've mentioned the weather already, and I know it's cold north of the wall. game was supposed to happen in March and it looks like they're playing in Siberia. And also, Sheffield United are in the first division at this stage. Arsenal were in the Premier League and they're playing Arsenal. So This could only be Next round of the FA Cup. Back if you're really applying that logic to it in terms of like when the date and the schedule of that competition happens. But they lose that game. So they can't have been playing Arsenal in the FA Cup because we know later on they play Man United in the semi final of the FA Cup. The next game, or a little while later, they're playing Leeds United, who are also in the Premier League at this point in time. Now The League Cup has finished by this point. So it can't be the League Cup. So what the hell, like who is the football consultant on this film? Like who is who is letting this? halfway through the menu game it's mentioned that it's the semi final. A V FA Cup. And you're not But why is it a Bramble light? It's like no neutral grounds. I actually had to kind of rewind that because is it is it right that all that information is delivered in a in a radio report? Like is Sean being sat in bed and kind of all the context around this match is delivered by a radio report that Sean Bean has sat in bed listening to. And and the sort of sign off to that is like Oh, and um Jimmy Muir is still on the bench waiting to make his debut. And if anybody gives a shit, anybody involved with Sheffield Unit cares whether this thirty five year old foreman on league that hasn't made an appearance, who is soon to be the designated penalty taker, is gonna be in the goddamn starting lineup. It's insane. So then we get the match against Manu and the player gets injured uh uh half time Sean Bean has to come on. And then they two nil down at this point? One nil down, then Sean Bean comes on. Sean Bean comes on, he concedes a free kick, he takes a booking. Mel Sterling at this point is beside himself. Yeah. Man United score from the resulting free kick. Jimmy Moore's stock is rock bottom. Yeah. The man United's free kick is An astonishing double cut. It's a bit like the train situation. In the They've got footage of this fake man United taking a kick and they've also got footage of a ball going into goal, but they haven't got footage of both. And the angles are completely different. Yeah so the ball launches into one direction and they cut to going in a completely different direction into the goal. Yeah. I mean there is there is one sort of fundamental rule of editing, which is called the axis of action, without getting too geeky, which is you can't cross this line of action because visually your brain can't process it if you cut. It's like if you have two people walking towards each other, you have to film and cut a certain way. Otherwise it looks like they're walking away from each other. And that film basically breaks it's like the first rule of grammar of editing, it breaks it. It's like he kicks it and you're like, what? Did he kick that into his own goal? Um Tuno up Manu and then Jimmy Muir the Fairy Tale Begins. We should talk about the k the catalyst for why it begins as well, really. So they're arguing over a throw Sean Bean wants to take a throw in, Mel Stone won't let won't let him. But then when then he kind of loses the ball and he looks at the crowd and he sees his dead brother taking his seat. Oh yeah. Which is a hell of a twist. Yeah. I I genuinely started laughing at this point, which I'm sure wasn't the intention of the filmmakers, 'cause I I thought for a second that h his brother had faked his death. In order to be the inspiration for Jimmy to get his act together. 'Cause you know he always had that sort of vibe where he was trying to inspire him. And then obviously I realised that's absolutely ridiculous. But the fact that I considered that plausible. For one. And also it's probably more plausible than what follows. Because what follows is that uh does he set up a goal and then score one? He sees his dead brother in the crowd. The Lemel Stern launches a long ball, Jimmy heads it it on. And then Mel Sterling himself scores it. But the th the difficult thing about this one too is that Mel Sterling's original free kick for this one, too, appears to be in his own half. So he's look Mel Sterling has launched this ball up to Sean Bean in the box. Sure be doesn't headed it down Sterling. It's run about forty yards in like four seconds, like three seconds. Buried it. You're just what I had the same observation and I and I actually cr I crunched the numbers 'cause I was so impressed with it. So so I I've done the maths, right? The pitch at Bramwell Lane is 110.5 yards long. which is 101.4 meters. So let's just say that Mel Sterling had to cover just under half that. from the point that he struck the original free kick to the point where he slid in Jimmy's header, right? They're say forty meters. And I timed it on the film. He covers that time in two seconds. Okay. And he he'd have to run at a consistent speed of fifty five point nine miles an hour to make up that ground. Which if that's correct. Thirty five year old Mel Stirland. is in the top five fastest land animals on the planet. But to be fair, to be fair, Michael, I never saw him play. So I do think Do you think they've misedited it? Do you think they've got to the edit and gone, Oh, we haven't got the footage we need here. We're gonna have to do a botch job. He can't say in the script. Melstone launches a ball from his own heart, Sean Bean heads it on Melstone and finishes it. It must be them trying to make the best of bad situation in the edit with the footage that they've found they've got, right? But I I was just gonna say I just don't think they care, but the end of this film is so rushed. It's almost like they've written the first seventy minutes and then they've been like, What have we got to do? They've like they've just packed it in. And so their attention to detail is just out of the window by the time Mel Sterling's playing a forty yard one, too. But the the thing with it is, like 'cause I remember I remember when it came out, there was this whole thing about Sean being Taking a panel take. See? He does take a penalty like And it he had to do it at half time in a game. And so I was like, Oh how much of the footage is done? Uh half time in a game. Were they filming this? They I know not I know not all of it is. What's one of the problems that they had like a ten minute window to get so many shots. So when we announced we were going to do this as a film club, we had quite a few tweets from people and quite a few people tweeted that they were there. the night that this was filmed. And basically they had a sort of small winning window at half time to film it, but they had to delay the start of the second half because when they were trying to get Sean Bean to take that penalty, it it took him five attempts to score. No. And I think that's that shot of um What's his name? Mel Sterland taking the free kick. That's that's definitely a pickup. So I think they had X amount of kind of genuine game footage within the stadium. And then they've had to go away because there's a few close ups of people sort of heading aboard or you know the close stuff around with the ball at the feet that are definitely filmed. elsewhere and I think they just haven't covered the geography properly. I've I've twice for television things ended up taking penalties at half time in football matches. And by the time the whistle's gone and all the players have got off the pitch, that's three minutes gone. When you film something in that period. you it's a very short window of time. They've probably got a maximum of ten minutes to do that whole thing. Well, as a man who runs the half time show the Homer Football London Stadium, you're ten minutes. Yeah. Ten minutes in and out. Yeah. And you it's really tight. So Mal Starling scores a goal and then Sean Bean gets fouled in the area. An elbow in the face, which is a very rare thing to lead to a penalty. But the thing I really enjoyed, which I'm sure our listeners would appreciate, Michael, could you drop in here the sound effect of Jimmy getting elbowed? Now, I don't think that sounds anything like an elbow. No. When you when you hear that back, it is hilarious. Well, it's one of a number of sound effects, sort of foley effects that are dropped on. There's one earlier when we first start this match, someone kicks a ball, and it's not an important, he just kicks a ball. And it sounds like what you imagine Bruce Lee punching a horse would sound like. Whoever put that on has never heard of football being kicked, ever. In terms of the whole thing feeling rushed, the end is unbelievable 'cause it gets to penalty. Sean Bean's gonna take the penalty, which obviously you've already covered Michael's being insane. I think he's suffering concussion. at the time as well. Which is a real sort of damning indictment of the attitude to head injuries. But like he would have been taken off the pitch. He can barely see or walk. And not only is he on the pitch The captain gives him the ball to take the penalty. Then he scores the penalty. And then he goes to celebrate and then just freeze phrase it on him. And that's it. I know, it's like a shit. I just couldn't quite believe it happened. I I presumed there'd be a few minutes of like Tying up a few loose ends. Or like so just to recap, that last 20 minutes he gets signed to Division One from non-league. He gets on the bench for like a what in the first chance he gets. the second game he comes off the bench and scores two. Third game or the third game. That that that could be the whole film. The whole film could just actually be about that period. It's so like I was I feel so robbed of all that. I was like, when is this gonna kick off? And then it's too late by the time it does. But the weirdest thing about it is Surely, I mean, maybe you get the point. But it does feel like it really comes to a shimmering halt at the end, that I was s I was surprised that that was it. I mean can we also talk about there were certain players on that Manchester United team that looked like they had tried to cast look alike of Manchester United players at the time. Now there was one guy who sort of had a Beckham esque vibe to him. But do you know, remember on um Nevermind the Buzzcocks when they sort of cast the the lineup round? Yeah. It looked like it was sort of a bad version of David Becker that they passed for comedy purposes. The goalie looks about sixteen. The goalie's a tiny a tiny young man. Overall, what were your thoughts? It blows my mind that it just ends like that. She was she was a first time writer director. So you know. I think I think what's Also, for all of the jokes that all the points we've made. I was was never bored. It rollocked along and I quite like I thoug Sean Bean was good. I was certainly surprised when his brother died. Not as surprised as I was when he appeared in the stands, but like Like, I've watched films where I've had a worse time. No, I don't like broadly, it was o it was okay. I mean it's got s so many kind of big errors. Broadly, it's okay. And it kinda stands up. It's not as horrific as the first five minutes of make you believe. The real story, I think, as a football fan you want to know is what happens to him when he jumps from non leagues to suddenly playing professional football and what's, you know Well I'd just love to know Did they win the FA Cup final? Yeah. Like what happened to him? Did he go on and have a career or was that a flash in the plan? Also the other thing with it, when he signs as Sheffield United, so he's annoyed at not being in the team. But presumably he's got bare minimum of a year's contract playing at a Division I wage. It's a completely life changing event, but it doesn't seem to influence him that much. It's not like, oh my God, I was an unemployed man and now I'm playing for one of the biggest Thirty clubs in the country. Yeah. Doesn't it doesn't really add up. But there we go. But you said you want to know what happens to him after. Well I I uh did doing a bit of research, I discovered that a sequel has been written which would see Sean Bean reprise his role as Jimmy Moore. It's called When Saturday Comes Redemption. So but presumably It's just written somewhere. I think it could still be made, 'cause Sean Bean it's not that much more unrealistic that he's fifty now playing top flight football. If I was writing when Saturday Comes Redemption I would cast Jimmy Muir as the Pete Posselthwaite figure to a new young player. That's what I'd do. I'd watch that. Yeah. Oh, I'd definitely watch that. Certainly if there's an hour long podcast, isn't it? One of the things that made me think when I was watching it, obviously it's sort of although I always assumed growing up that Sean Bean had sort of written this for himself as a passion project, that actually wasn't the case at all. There's a whole story around like how the film came about. I wondered is there another are there sort of good examples that either we or even our listeners can think of of sort of famous actors who we know are football fans that they could write their own when Saturday Comes style story or film. You know, for example, Tom Hanks is supposedly an Aston Villa fan. Is there a world in which he writes and stars in the Doug Ellis story? Or you know Judy Dench as an Everton fan writes some kind of like Delia Smith style Everton are on their knees, she comes in as this new older female chairman. Judy Denis they don't respect her because she's Yeah, allegedly, yeah, she's built in the game. But I'd I'd love to hear we haven't done any reviews this year. this series. So I wonder whether a fun uh review system was we get listeners to uh give us an elevator pitch for kind of actor plus club. plus narrative, uh, you know, Hugh Grant's a Fulham fan. Is there a Hugh Grant plus Fulham plus football film narrative review that you can give us and we'll read out the best ones on the show? Yes, great. Look forward to it. Um I thoroughly enjoyed When Saturday Comes. Let us know if you know of any good football films and we will watch them. But uh next week we're gonna go with uh next week we'll be watching United Passions. And you might go, what is that? You might remember it as the Tim Roth starring a Sep Blatter Biopic. that came out just before Setbladser was disgraced. Not that he wasn't disgraced for twenty years before that, but there we go. Just to give you a flavor of how amazing this film is gonna be, it had a budget of twenty five to thirty two million dollars and drew just over a hundred and sixty thousand dollars in the box office. So That's a big loss. But I can't wait to see it. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the first ever Quickly Kevin Film Club. We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode of now That's What I Call Quickly Kevin. Until then. Robbie Slater, see you later. Mm. Max Rushton. I'm David O'Daherty. And we'd like to invite you to listen to our new podcast, What Did You Do Yesterday. It's a show that asks guests the big question. Quite literally, What did you do yesterday? That's it. That is it. Max, I'm still not sure where do we put the stress, is it what did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? You know what I mean? What did you do yesterday? I'm really downplaying it. Like what did you do yesterday? Like I'm just I'm just a guy just asking a question. But do you think I should go bigger? What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? Every single word this time I'm gonna try and make it like it is the killer word. What did you do yesterday? I think that's too much, isn't it? That is that's over the top. What did you do yesterday? Available wherever you get your podcasts every Sunday.