Here is an unashamedly partisan documentary whose ostensible subject is the 1975 European cup final between Bayern Munich and Leeds United – a match that seems to have largely disappeared from the public’s nostalgia memory board. (This includes Leeds supporters, many of whom in this film’s opening sequence appear to be completely unaware of its ever having taken place – let alone know the result.) The game, of course, was notoriously won by Bayern, after a disallowed goal and a couple of what you might think were nailed-on penalty claims.
Director-producer Harvey Marcus previously gave us Waterloo Sunset, an amiable study of social housing in central London, and this – while similarly low-budget – is very much a change of pace. It is a furious supporter’s-eye view of the action, with many of the diehard Leeds fans still burning with rage about it all. The words “cheated”, “robbed” and “corrupt” are thrown about, though nobody (wisely) makes these claims against Bayern, preferring to focus their ire against referee Michel Kitabdjian (who died in 2020).
The fans’ anecdotes are augmented by a couple of heavyweight player interviews: Paul Reaney, still combative and fairly scary as he reaches his ninth decade, and the somewhat more emollient Allan Clarke, still apparently devastated at not being given a pen after Franz Beckenbauer took him out. Sadly, a good number of their teammates are no longer with us; nor, of course, is Don Revie, who built the side in the mid-1960s before abruptly departing for the England manager’s job before the 1974-75 season started. And while the game itself may no longer be lodged in the wider public’s brain, The Damned United, both book and film, have made sure that the early-70s-vintage Leeds side, and their scrap with Revie’s immediate successor Brian Clough, has passed into sporting legend – though without acknowledging their footballing excellence as much as, shall we say, their enthusiasm for getting stuck in.
Marcus’s film uses actual TV footage of the game very sparingly, for fair-use budgetary reasons no doubt, and padding out the visuals with lots of endearingly wobbly cine footage presumably shot by supporters in the stands. And while there’s little objective analysis of what else might have been a factor in the outcome – the Bayern team, after all, contained the spine of the West German side that had won the World Cup the year before – this film is a valuable piece of football archaeology, exposing a culture of fans’ closeness to the players that has long since vanished.
Paris 75 is at Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal and Reel, Wakefield on 10 October, then tours.
