Busby, Stein and Shankly - The Football Men
Screened online 20 - 25 May 2020 as part of Writing on the Wall.
The Arena’s The Football Men – The Price of Glory charts the incredible success that legendary football managers Matt Busby, Jock Stein and Bill Shankly brought to their clubs during the sixties and seventies, and examines their later years. Presented by sports writer Hugh McIlvanney, the film evokes memories of the glory days of English football at a time when the game was all that mattered.
Writing on the Wall hosted an exclusive screening of this Arena documentary, alongside a film of responses from Lizzi Doyle from The Anfield Wrap, Pitch Black author Emy Onuora and award-winning journalist Brian Reade that can still be watched here.
There are also specially commissioned poetic responses from Yemeni-Scouse poet Amina Atiq and writer and performer Ashleigh Nugent, plus an online life writing workshop from Tony Wailey for aspiring writers.
BUSBY, STEIN AND SHANKLY - THE FOOTBALL MEN
Anthony Wall on The Football Men
Arena: Busby, Stein and Shankly arose out of a long lunch, the kind of lunch that doesn’t arise any more. Lunch with Hugh McIlvanney was always liable to be a long one, he was old school Fleet Street. Acknowledged to be one of the finest sports writers ever, he transcended his genre; he was a brilliant writer full stop.
We’d just transmitted Sports Writer, an Arena on the art of sports writing, directed by Frank Hanly and presented by Hugh. Typical of Hugh’s style was an observation on Brazil’s greatest footballer: “With Pele, even his opponents felt enriched by what he did to them”. His prose fused elegance with the wit and edge of his native Glasgow. Football had been one of the main themes of that film, Hugh knew the game inside out but he also had a profound understanding of how it played in the working-class culture that supported it.
Around about the fourth bottle, Hugh declared that Bill Shankly, Matt Busby and Jock Stein, the three most celebrated managers of their era, had all been born within fifteen miles of each other in the west of Scotland coalfields and that all three had been miners. He felt this was the key to their methods and their success. Here was a film.
These men shepherded British football into the modern era from the near feudal circumstances in which it had been played before. In 1967, Stein’s Celtic were the first British team to win the European Cup. The following year Busby took the same trophy with Manchester United, a decade after the Munich air disaster that had destroyed virtually his entire team. Shankly transformed Liverpool from a side in the Second Division to the dominant club of the post-war era.
Each had an unforgettable character and, more than that, each became the emblem of the cities their clubs represented — Stein: Celtic and Glasgow; Busby: United and Manchester; and Shankly, Liverpool.
We could have given each one an episode of his own, but felt that the films would be so much richer if their stories were intertwined — a taller order but I knew that Frank’s cool authoritative direction and Hugh’s mercurial talent would pull it off. Episodes 1 and 2 covered their early life and careers as players, this final episode sees them in their full glory.
Directed by Frank Hanly, Arena: The Football Men was nominated for a Royal Television Society award
Anthony Wall
14 April 2020
THE FOOTBALL MEN
ARENA: Busby, Stein & Shankly Episode 1
ARENA: Busby, Stein & Shankly Episode 2
ARENA: Busby, Stein & Shankly Episode 3
Responses
A film of responses to Episode 3 from Lizzy Doyle, Emy Onuora and Brian Reade.
Lizzi Doyle is the producer of The Anfield Wrap Podcast, Liverpool FC’s largest fan media organisation, which reaches 80 countries around the world. By the age of just 23, Lizzi had produced the two longest broadcasts in, Radio City’s, Liverpool’s biggest commercial station, history: the Hillsborough Inquests and the 24-hour Mental Health Marathon. She was the station’s first female sports producer and has gone on to win multiple awards for her work as a producer. Through her work producing The Anfield Wrap's podcasts and appearing on national media platforms, Lizzi is pushing for more female involvement in sports media.
Emy Onuora has an MA in Ethnic Studies and Race Relations from the University of Liverpool and has lectured extensively on issues of race and sport within higher education. He was co-editor of the Merseyside based football fanzine What’s the Score and is the brother of former footballer, coach and Ethiopia national team manager, Iffy Onuora and of athlete and Olympic medallist Anyika Onuora. He lives in Liverpool. Onuora’s book Pitch Black tells the story of how profound changes in attitudes from UEFA, the FA and the media towards racism in the game came about, but does so for the first time from the perspective of those who faced the poisonous stereotypes — the monkey chanting, the throwing of bananas and the bullets in the post. The book is a compelling insight into the motivations, thoughts, ideas and experiences of black British footballers.
Brian Reade is an award-winning journalist and author who has two-weekly opinion columns, one on football, in the Daily Mirror. He was born in Liverpool and began his career on the Reading Post in 1980, became a columnist on the Liverpool Echo in 1990 and joined the Daily Mirror in 1994. The British Press Awards have named Reade Columnist, Sports Columnist and Feature Writer of the Year, and awarded him the Cudlipp Award for Journalistic Excellence for his Hillsborough campaigning. He has written two books, 43 Years With The Same Bird (2008) about a life following Liverpool FC, and Epic Swindle about LFC’s doomed Hicks and Gillett takeover, which made the Sunday Times bestseller list. In 2018 he wrote and narrated a documentary about trade union leader Jack Jones called Unsung Hero. He lives in Liverpool with a wife, three kids and a Kop season ticket.
Poetry
Poetic responses from Ashleigh Nugent and Amina Atiq.
Ashleigh Nugent
‘The Price of Glory’
Commissioned poets
Amina Atiq is a Yemeni–Scouse writer, performance artist and activist. She was awarded the LJMU Citizenship award for her active and community engagement work and awarded as a Young Associate for Curious Minds. BBC Words First Finalist 2019. She is currently a remote resident of Metal Southend, working on a new and exciting project, exploring a pamphlet for Yemeni women writers. Recent work involves a new commissioned poem for the ‘Yemen in Conflict’ project which will be used part of a multimedia exhibition at the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival. Her next upcoming commission is in collaboration with Imperial War Museums, responding to What does Victory mean? Atiq’s work explores the conflict and beauty of her dual identity, taking us on a journey to her heartland, Yemen, and her homeland, Liverpool. She is currently producing and writing her first one-woman show, exploring a 1970s Yemeni- British household to untangle what it means to belong.
Ashleigh Nugent is a writer and performer with over twenty years’ experience. His latest work, Locks, is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel set in a Jamaican prison. Locks, due to be published in summer 2020, won the 2013 Commonword Memoir Competition and has had excerpts published by Writing on the Wall and in bido lito magazine. Ashleigh’s one-man show, based on Locks, has won support from SLATE/Eclipse Theatre, and received a bursary from Live Theatre, Newcastle. The show has garnered rave audience reviews following showings in theatres and prisons throughout the UK. Ashleigh’s other published work includes poems, articles and academic writing. Ashleigh is also a director at RiseUp, where he uses his own life experience, writing and performance to support prisoners and inspire change. www.riseupcic.co.uk
Interviews
An Interview with Mike Morris
Writing on the Wall (WoW) Co-Director Mike Morris is a founder member of WoW and has a background in community activity, in education and film-making. He was a writer on Dockers (Channel 4, 2000) and a co-director and producer of a ground-breaking documentary, Liverpool's Cunard Yanks (Granada, 2008). He is a playwright; his first play Waiting for Brando, which he wrote and produced, was put on at Liverpool's Unity Theatre in 2012 and 2013, followed by a short tour of UK theatres. His second play, Subterranean Theatre: The Maurie, based on a short story by George Garrett, was produced as a site-specific piece in Liverpool's Cunard Building in 2015. Mike created and directed the George Garrett Archive Project. Alongside Co-Director Madeline Heneghan, he is responsible for WoW's long-term strategic aims and development.
