A British sports documentary; A story about an English football club's extraordinary 1979 European Cup triumph and colourful exploits of its team manager, Brian Clough. This film was a long time coming for British football enthusiasts for the scale of the achievement is often forgotten a generation later yet remains unequalled. The main theme is how success sometimes emerges from burgeoning talent however unproven. It features a bombastic personality, one who was ridiculed for his abrasive and forthright opinions, but underestimated by national media. Through news clips and interviews with the team manager and his assistant, Peter Taylor, the narrative has force and panache. The film also analyses how psychology methods have been used in sport and the skill of man-management. It touches on the courage and self-belief of footballers to make their dreams come true. A wealth of amusing anecdotes humorously subverts the rhetoric and football club corporate culture of today with its strict management of player reputation. The message of the film seems to be that the answer to team success has always been there all along: team spirit. Where most football club documentaries appeal to their own supporters, this one will have wider appeal.
9 Reviews
Brian Clough - O.B.E. - Old Big Ed - Legend.
hitchcockthelegend8 January 2016
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
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
Endearing Documentary on a footballing 'Miracle'
BJJManchester22 October 2015
Warning: Spoilers
'I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES' tells the remarkable story of Nottingham Forest FC and their catapulting into footballing folklore in the mid-late 1970's,thanks to arguably the most flamboyant,controversial yet charismatic and talented manager in English football history,the late Brian Clough,who took them to the height of success not just in England but Europe as well.
The movie starts when Clough's career was seemingly at the crossroads;after winning the English League Championship with Forest's East Midlands rivals Derby County in 1972,Clough departed along with his assistant Peter Taylor after a series of feuds with the club's directors,and after a brief and unsuccessful spell at Brighton and Hove Albion,rather surprisingly became manager at Leeds United,a club he had often fiercely criticised publicly,along with its manager Don Revie,who ironically hailed from the same industrial town as Clough himself,Middlesbrough.Equally unsurprisingly,Clough's tenure was short-lived in the light of such mutual hostility,and the fractious TV interview alongside Revie is perhaps an appropriate way for the film to begin,progressing from the ridiculous to the sublime.
By the beginning of 1975,Clough was appointed manager of Nottingham Forest,a club with past traditions in the FA Cup (having won the trophy twice),but not the sort you would expect to win League Championships,as indeed Derby were until they triumphed three years earlier;Derby themselves would go on to win the league at the end of that same season with a different manager (Dave Mackay),whereas Forest ended in mid- table mediocrity in the then second division and expected to remain so or even worse,Brian Clough or not.
However,the following two seasons saw a gradual improvement,to the extent that Forest won promotion to the first division,albeit narrowly in third place.Not much was expected of them in the new season,being made up of apparent footballing journeymen,cheap signings and unheralded also-rans,with such names as John McGovern,John Robertson,Martin O'Neill,Larry Lloyd,Kenny Burns and Tony Woodcock.Yet thanks to Clough's extraordinary skills of man-management and attractive football,he moulded them and others (most notably goalkeeper Peter Shilton) into a championship winning squad by the season's end,and even more astonishingly went on to win the European Cup two years in succession,acquiring the first million pound signing,Trevor Francis,along the way,who scored the winner in the 1979 final against Swedish club Malmo,in perhaps the least fashionable coda in the tournament's history.
The story seems woefully far-fetched to the uninitiated yet it did actually happen,and it is all likeably put together in a straightforward but efficient manner by director Jonny Owen,via pithy and amusing reminiscences by long retired players like Burns,Shilton,Lloyd and O'Neill interspersed with highlights of such heady days.The one who comes out of it best of all is Brian Clough himself,who could be both maddening and enchanting,belligerent yet charming,overtly confrontational but intensely articulate,and never remotely dull.
Inevitably,because director Owen keeps the story down to those remarkable years between 1977 and 1980,many aspects relating to this period and after are conveniently skipped over;the hooliganism that plagued English football at the time,his eventual acrimonious falling out with Taylor,his steady decline due to his alcohol problem and Forest's relegation in his final year in charge,plus allegations of financial misdeeds in his later years.But this was perhaps the right thing to do as the film intends to project a relentless feel-good factor,and it achieves it all very enjoyably with a warm glow by it's finish,helped on immeasurably by a Funk/Northern Soul soundtrack comprising of such tunes of the era which is very well judged and executed,adding to the purveying atmosphere of nostalgia.
In these days of billionaire benefactors and opulent signings of players from every corner of the globe,this is a timely reminder that the underdog can occasionally triumph against all the odds,thanks to team spirit,outstanding management and attractive football which is genuinely inspiring.And with the likes of an individual like Brian Clough no longer with us,it looked as though it would never happen again,yet barely six months after the film was released, Forest's East Midlands rivals Leicester City performed a footballing miracle of their own when they won the Premier League for the first time in their history with the affable,charming Italian Claudio Ranieri at the helm.But we can still celebrate and enjoy such victories in years past too with such a thoroughly endearing film as this.
Rating:8 out of 10.
The movie starts when Clough's career was seemingly at the crossroads;after winning the English League Championship with Forest's East Midlands rivals Derby County in 1972,Clough departed along with his assistant Peter Taylor after a series of feuds with the club's directors,and after a brief and unsuccessful spell at Brighton and Hove Albion,rather surprisingly became manager at Leeds United,a club he had often fiercely criticised publicly,along with its manager Don Revie,who ironically hailed from the same industrial town as Clough himself,Middlesbrough.Equally unsurprisingly,Clough's tenure was short-lived in the light of such mutual hostility,and the fractious TV interview alongside Revie is perhaps an appropriate way for the film to begin,progressing from the ridiculous to the sublime.
By the beginning of 1975,Clough was appointed manager of Nottingham Forest,a club with past traditions in the FA Cup (having won the trophy twice),but not the sort you would expect to win League Championships,as indeed Derby were until they triumphed three years earlier;Derby themselves would go on to win the league at the end of that same season with a different manager (Dave Mackay),whereas Forest ended in mid- table mediocrity in the then second division and expected to remain so or even worse,Brian Clough or not.
However,the following two seasons saw a gradual improvement,to the extent that Forest won promotion to the first division,albeit narrowly in third place.Not much was expected of them in the new season,being made up of apparent footballing journeymen,cheap signings and unheralded also-rans,with such names as John McGovern,John Robertson,Martin O'Neill,Larry Lloyd,Kenny Burns and Tony Woodcock.Yet thanks to Clough's extraordinary skills of man-management and attractive football,he moulded them and others (most notably goalkeeper Peter Shilton) into a championship winning squad by the season's end,and even more astonishingly went on to win the European Cup two years in succession,acquiring the first million pound signing,Trevor Francis,along the way,who scored the winner in the 1979 final against Swedish club Malmo,in perhaps the least fashionable coda in the tournament's history.
The story seems woefully far-fetched to the uninitiated yet it did actually happen,and it is all likeably put together in a straightforward but efficient manner by director Jonny Owen,via pithy and amusing reminiscences by long retired players like Burns,Shilton,Lloyd and O'Neill interspersed with highlights of such heady days.The one who comes out of it best of all is Brian Clough himself,who could be both maddening and enchanting,belligerent yet charming,overtly confrontational but intensely articulate,and never remotely dull.
Inevitably,because director Owen keeps the story down to those remarkable years between 1977 and 1980,many aspects relating to this period and after are conveniently skipped over;the hooliganism that plagued English football at the time,his eventual acrimonious falling out with Taylor,his steady decline due to his alcohol problem and Forest's relegation in his final year in charge,plus allegations of financial misdeeds in his later years.But this was perhaps the right thing to do as the film intends to project a relentless feel-good factor,and it achieves it all very enjoyably with a warm glow by it's finish,helped on immeasurably by a Funk/Northern Soul soundtrack comprising of such tunes of the era which is very well judged and executed,adding to the purveying atmosphere of nostalgia.
In these days of billionaire benefactors and opulent signings of players from every corner of the globe,this is a timely reminder that the underdog can occasionally triumph against all the odds,thanks to team spirit,outstanding management and attractive football which is genuinely inspiring.And with the likes of an individual like Brian Clough no longer with us,it looked as though it would never happen again,yet barely six months after the film was released, Forest's East Midlands rivals Leicester City performed a footballing miracle of their own when they won the Premier League for the first time in their history with the affable,charming Italian Claudio Ranieri at the helm.But we can still celebrate and enjoy such victories in years past too with such a thoroughly endearing film as this.
Rating:8 out of 10.
The greatest football film ever made? I think so
in-chaos-we-trust18 March 2016
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.
The beautiful game
adam-578-3433766 December 2021
Essential viewing for football fans.
Harks back to an era of football fairytales and muddy pitches. Worlds away from today's game, when football was for the fans.
Nostalgic maybe, but also wonderful and, in some places, highly emotional.
Harks back to an era of football fairytales and muddy pitches. Worlds away from today's game, when football was for the fans.
Nostalgic maybe, but also wonderful and, in some places, highly emotional.
Feelgood Documentary That Might Have been Conceived Better
l_rawjalaurence11 December 2015
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.
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.
Absolutely brilliant!
mgrowlands711 May 2022
Great documentary, pity about the music
harper1875-230-35923719 August 2020
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.
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.
Life Of Brian
Lejink19 February 2022
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.
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.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
