Challenging, opinionated and funny, One Night In Turin is a documentary that moves fast, covers a lot of ground, and feels too short at 93 minutes.
It’s about Italia 90, a tournament that was pre-Sky and post-Heysel. English clubs had been banned from Europe for five years and Thatcher’s nasty little Sports Minister Colin Moynihan went round warning foreign governments that England fans were the scum of the earth
We see the hooliganism, the cowardly Italian riot police, the mischief and magic of Gazza, and, in middle of all that stress and strife, the shining decency of Bobby Robson, who, rising above the abuse of our tabloid hyenas, always said sensible things like, “There’s no higher level to play, there’s no higher level to manage.”
It’s not widely known that Bobby Robson got the job because he played cricket with FA Chairman Bert Millichip. Bert knew what a gentleman Bobby was.
Director James Erskine’s achievement here is immediacy.
He takes you into the moment by recreating the historic highlights of that rollercoaster journey. He frames pulsating events, making us re-live the feelings that those events generated. Watching on a big screen at the Vue, Shepherds Bush, with an audience of 20/30somethings, we got really involved as the film took those moments and made them bigger, stronger, more vivid.
Six England games, six dramas: Ireland, Holland, Egypt, Belgium, Cameroon, Germany
Ireland was a crude goalless stalemate, Holland was another draw, Egypt was 0- 0 until Mark Wright soared into the stratosphere to nod in Gazza’s free-kick, Gazza gave Platt the ball he volleyed to beat Belgium, Cameroon were 2-1 up until Lineker slotted two penalties and we all thought :” F***ing hell! How did we win that?”
The semi-final went to extra time, then penalties. Waddle hit the bar, Pearce hit the keeper, England were hailed as heroes. But until they got off the plane at Luton they had no idea they had become heroes.
If you know a lot about Italia 90, One Night In Turin will stir golden memories and set you up for the World Cup. If you know a little, it will tell you a lot and surprise you, big time.
It is a punchy, provocative film that take sides, never sits on the fence. Football is so corporate now, after selling its soul in 1992, that it’s lovely to see a film that has a lot of heart, starring Englishmen who had a lot of heart. The film has heart because the classic of British reportage it’s based on, All Played Out, has a lot of heart.
I was apprehensive about the live Q&A, hosted by Jim Rosenthal, but it worked very well.
Author Pete Davies’s answers were incisive and passionate, Stuart Pearce was informative, and Erskine said that while Italia 90 was on he was working in a Manchester factory that produced airline meals.
Pete Davies said, “Bobby Robson was outstandingly patient and courteous, a genuinely decent human being. He was subjected to vicious, vicious abuse. Why are they doing this to us? He’d look baffled and sigh deeply.”
People always wonder how Davies got so much access to the players. “How did I do it? I asked, and they let me. I couldn’t have got luckier.”
Stuart Pearce said, “Bobby sheltered us a great deal. When he picked me in ’87, the media said : This idiot will get sent off every game. He picked me. He picked Gazza.”
Pearce also said, “Team spirit comes with success, with victories, from time together at a finals. A national team becomes like a club team. If we’d met Germany in the next game, with even more momentum, who knows?”
The DVD comes out on May 31.
If you want to get into a World Cup groove, watch this DVD and read the retitled book.