402. The Three Kings; movie review

 

 

THE THREE KINGS

Cert PG

100 mins

BBFC advice: Contains mild violence, language, upsetting scenes

"Without fans who pay at the turnstile, football is nothing. Sometimes we are inclined to forget that."

The words of Jock Stein, the manager who led Celtic to the European Cup, are recalled at a time in which the beautiful game is being played behind closed doors but is carrying on thanks to its worldwide TV audience.

Nowadays the passion comes from armchair fans venting their opinions on social media and the players and managers are multi-millionaires.

Stein, Matt Busby and Bill Shankly came from a different era when football ground terraces were packed with working people.

The fans cheered teams made up from lads who had come from similar back streets to theirs.

The players saw football as a refuge from having to work down the pits. They were part of the fabric of society not apart from it as they are today.

And in three cities, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, three former miners created teams which laid the foundation for dominance of the sport.

The Three Kings runs the stories of Busby, Shankly and Stein in parallel. They became huge figures in football and respected each other enormously.

They didn't get involved in touchline histrionics or self-aggrandisement on television. They were only answerable to the respective fans of Manchester United, Liverpool and Celtic.

Jonny Owen's documentary looks at the lives and careers of the three great managers by chronology, beginning just after the war when Busy took the reigns at United.

He developed the Busy Babes, a hugely talented but very young team who swept their way to success in England but were cruel victims of an air crash in Munich as they were setting about proving they were the best in Europe.

Incredibly, Busby went on to rebuild United and achieve similar success with an almost entirely new team.

Shankly, who came from a similarly tough background in Scotland, had a tougher managerial apprenticeship in the north of England but found his home in Liverpool on the recommendation of Busby.

He took a second division club and transformed them into Championship and FA Cup cup winners.

Meanwhile, Stein's achievement was in some ways greater because his was the first British team to win the European Cup - and they all hailed from within 30 miles of Celtic Park.

Owen's film provides footage of all three men during their careers and supplements them with narrated history and contemporary and current interviews.

It is more than a football documentary. It is a social commentary - taking its action from post-war Britain up until the late 1970s.

However, don't expect too many revelations. Much has been written and said about these three giants of football and there really isn't anything left to be uncovered.

Nevertheless, students of the beautiful game's history will love it.

Reasons to watch: If you are keen on football history

Reasons to avoid: If you only care about the here and now

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8/10

Did you know? Hugely successful football managers to emerge from Glasgow also include Kenny Dalglish who won titles at Liverpool (including the double) and Blackburn and George Graham who won the title and multiple cups at Arsenal.

The final word. Jonny Owen: "The world these men came from (working in the mines) created an environment where you had to be close and you had to get on - the central tenents of any walk of life, especially football which was one of the only avenues available to them."

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