The Damned United (2009)

Actors: Rob Lane (composer), Christine Langan (producer), Andy Harries (producer), Colm Meaney (actor), Chris Wilson (actor), Michael Sheen (actor), Michael Parkinson (actor), Jim Broadbent (actor), Stephen Graham (actor), Giles Alderson (actor), Muhammad Ali (actor), Timothy Spall (actor), Maurice Roëves (actor), Ralph Ineson (actor), Peter Morgan (writer),

Plot: Taking over England's top football club Leeds United, previously successful manager Brian Clough's abrasive approach and his clear dislike of the players' dirty style of play make it certain there is going to be friction. Glimpses of his earlier career help explain both his hostility to previous manager Don Revie and how much he is missing right-hand man Peter Taylor who has loyally stayed with Brighton & Hove Albion.

Keywords: 1960s, 1970s, ambition, archive-footage, arrogance, bare-chested-male, based-on-novel, beach, best-friend, board-meeting
Genres: Biography, Comedy, Drama, Sport,
Taglines: "They love me for what I'm not... ...they hate me for what I am."

Quotes:

Brian Clough: [to the assembled Leeds players] Well, I might as well tell you now. You lot may all be internationals and have won all the domestic honours there are to win under Don Revie. But as far as I'm concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest fucking dustbin you can find, because you've never won any of them fairly. You've done it all by bloody cheating.

Brian Clough: Things are going to be a little different around here... without Don.

Sam Longson: His salary's 300 quid a week? You can't pay a footballer that!::Brian Clough: That's the way things are going, Uncle Sam...

Brian Clough: [Arriving in Brighton. Sings] Oh, I don't like to be beside the seaside...

Brian Clough: You know he'll be making a file on us. A dossier.::Peter Taylor: Who?::Brian Clough: Don Revie. Prepares a file on every game. Leaves nothing to chance. Knows every opponent's formations, strategies everything.::Peter Taylor: I've heard he's a superstitious twat.::Brian Clough: [Ignoring him] We grew up just a few streets apart in Middlesbrough... Close to Ayresome Park. He'll have known my street: Valley Road. Probably bought sweets from Garnett's factory where me dad worked.::Peter Taylor: I heard he wears the same suit to every game. His lucky blue suit.

Manny Cussins: I hired you to do this job because I think you're the best young manager in this country.::Brian Clough: Thank you. I'm the best old one, too.::Manny Cussins: I also did it under the assumption that you would be coming here wanting the best for this club. For the city of Leeds. So why do I get the feeling this is all about you and Don?::Brian Clough: Of course it's just about me and Don. Always has been. But instead of putting frowns on your foreheads, all you elders of Leeds in your blazers and your brass-fucking-buttons, it should put big white Colgate smiles on your big white faces. Because it means I won't eat, and won't sleep until I've taken whatever that man's achieved, and beaten it. Beaten it so I never have to hear the name Don fucking Revie again. Beat it, the only name anyone sings in the Yorkshire ale houses, raising their stinking jars to their stinking mouths, is Brian Clough. Brian Clough uber-fucking-alles! Understand?

Brian Clough: I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the country. But I'm in the top one.

Peter Taylor: Brighton's a small club, I'll give you that.::Brian Clough: Bloody midgets!::Peter Taylor: But at least we'd be together! You and me, Brian. We can build them up. Make them our own, like we did with Hartlepools, like we did with Derby...::Brian Clough: And then what? Bottle again soon as it comes to the big time? That's always been the trouble with you, Pete. No ambition.::Peter Taylor: That's the trouble with you, Brian. Too much ambition. Too much greed, too much everything!::Brian Clough: Yeah, you knock it, but it's done you proud over the years, hasn't it? My ambition. Without me, you'd still be in Burton bloody Albion.::Peter Taylor: Yes, and without you, I'd still have a job in Derby! A job and a home that I love. Oh, yes, you're the shop window, I grant you that. The razzle and the bloody dazzle. But I'm the goods in the back! Without me, without somebody to save you from yourself, Brian fucking Clough, you're not just half. You're nothing!::Brian Clough: I'm nothing? I'm nothing? Don't make me laugh. What does that make you then, Taylor? Something? You're half of nothing! Nothing's parasite! A big fat pilot fish that feeds on nothing. A bloody nobody! The forgotten man! History's fucking afterthought!

Manny Cussins: Let's be honest, Brian. It's not working, is it? The players aren't happy. We're not happy. In truth, we should probably never have hired you without Peter Taylor.::Brian Clough: So... what do you want to do about it?::Manny Cussins: It's not working. We have to part company.::Brian Clough: Fine, it'll cost you twenty-five grand.::Manny Cussins: What? For six weeks' work?::Brian Clough: Plus three-and-a-half grand for Jimmy Gordon. And an agreement that Leeds United will pay both our income taxes for the next three years.::Manny Cussins: That is bloody criminal!::Brian Clough: You can throw in the Merc and all.::Manny Cussins: What?::Brian Clough: Might be a bit flash for a man out of a job, but the truth is, I've grown to like it.::Manny Cussins: Who do you bloody think you are?::Brian Clough: Brian Clough. Brian Howard Clough.

Brian Clough: We're from the north, Pete. What do we care about Brighton? Bloody southerners. Look where we are! We're almost in France!