The Damned Film?

The young Brian Clough?

Just seen Michael Sheen on Jonathan Ross (that's me crazy guy, crazy Friday night) and I'm looking forward to The Damned United film. And I enjoyed the book.

I'm sorry that the Clough family have been upset but it is, essentially, a fictionalised account of real events involving Brian Clough. An age old dramatic trick that David Peace handles wonderfully well in the book. I hope the film does it justice.

I was amazed to find out from Radio Five Live that Tim Lovejoy didn't know Derby had once reached the semi finals of the European Cup - in other news Timbo, Chelsea were once skint - but he learnt a lot from the film.

That will, of course, be the problem. Clough's entire legacy, as complicated, glorious and often unattractive as it is, should not be a fictionalised account of one and half months of madness.

I have read a lot about Clough. And, perhaps like no other footballer, this was a man built to lend himself to heightened dramatic portrayals. The problem, I guess, that the Clough family have is that the man Peace created had little in common with the family man they knew.

But the family man was possibly also far removed from the life Clough led in public. He was an ultimate actor (like Tony Blair, like Kenneth Williams and like David Frost those other Sheen impersonations) who lived his public life in a state of heightened drama. Peace simply joined together the dots that Clough himself had left behind.

So I'm looking forward to the film (despite hating the experience of going to the cinema and despite the knowledge of football films past). It shouldn't be seen as the definitive story of Brian Clough. But as part of the legacy of the mythical legend that Clough actively sought to create I hope it lives up to a fantastic novel.

We'll Meet Again

Dame Vere: Gawd Lurve 'Er

Liverpool and Chelsea - inevitably. Manchester United and Villareal - possibly. The Scottish Football Blog and my devoted reader(s) - finally!

It's been too long. And like the best laid plans my lofty ambitions for this blog have gang agley. Apologies but being both man and mouse what do you expect from me?

Anyway I'm back now. What's coming up? Further updates to the work in progress that is www.scottishfootballblog.co.uk. You can check it now - the grand scheme is in place but my poorly developed web skills are still toiling to make it the full, user friendly experience that it should be.

In time it will be a portal to this blog - you'll still be able to read the blog here but the accessibility of the links, archives, bookshop and sister/brother/sibling blog should be enhanced for readers old and new. In time other things should develop there to make it, not comprehensive, but certainly useful on all aspects of Scottish football.

I'm also now tweeting on Twitter (why tweeting and not twittering?) which allows me to update more often on the things that get me going about football in Scotland and elsewhere - I might even give real time updates a try during a live game or two to see how that goes.

If my own twittering/tweeting does not suffice I'm trying to follow the main football news sites so ScotFootBlog should be the place to go for all the fitba' you can consume in 140 characters or less. A tweeting widget will appear here soon so even those of you who remain Twitterless can enjoy my abbreviated ramblings.

Coming up on the blog; I've been reading up on Roy of the Rovers, Jock Stein and Hunter Davies so the reviews will appear shortly; they've let me out of the country so my experiences watching Den Haag will be posted soon; Scotland have a couple of games coming up that might warrant some attention and, of course, the season is coming to its business end.

Plenty to keep us going then. When I've caught up with myself I'm going to stockpile time insensitive articles which should mean a new article appearing every day. That's the grand plan anyway.

There are three reasons for my disappearance. I'm in a new job, the drunken whirl I occasionally and sarcastically call a social life and laziness on an almost incomprehensible scale. Two of these I'll need to sort out myself but the first has involved me privatizing myself and working for a company that actually needs to make a profit.

The good news is it is an established web business so hopefully I can pick up some tips that will help the blog to grow and become more user friendly - except, with only a couple of optional exceptions, this will remain a free to air experience rather than some sort of virtual Dick Turpin experience (information super-highway robber, if you will).

So that's the news! Apologies for the lengthy black out and, please folks, stay tuned!

PS: It's now even easier to find the blog on Google - scottish football blog should turn us up in the first couple of results at least. As my Analytics knowledge improves we should go up for other terms as well. Cheers.