Video Of The Week: The Saturday Men (West Bromwich Albion 1962)
Mar 22
This week’s Video Of The Week goes all the way back to 1962, and a short film called “The Saturday Men”. Produced as part of a shot series of films sponsored by the Ford Motor Company called “Look At Britain”, “The Saturday Men” spends a week following West Bromwich Albion around. It follows them to training, the inner workings of the boardroom (to the extent to which the inhabitants of said room were going to be honest when there were cameras around), takes the time to meet a former player who is about to embark on a new career as a salesman and even stops in on a pre-match team talk by the club’s then manager, Archie McAuley.
The series, which was directed by John Fletcher and with music by James Harpham, who would go on to find some degree of fame as the writer of the atmospheric music for the BBC series “Tenko” in the early 1980s, was considered somewhat revolutionary at the time for its fly-on-the-wall style. It was highly praised for its non-intrusive style, which paved the way for other documentaries of the same style and even now is notable for the honest style in which it depicts its subject. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of selective camera work going on here. At just under half an hour long, “The Saturday Men” is well worth half an hour of your time.
Good insight of how life was of my place of birth 4 years before i was born and to see legends such as don howe and bobby robson in such humble surroundings.
What comparissons to the footballer of today even the clip of a baggies player taking out his teeth before the game and coming to the end of their careers having to find alternative employment and re-train.
Thank you
Bully life long baggie
What a fantastic short film, I raved about it all day then it was gone. A great piece of social documentary which just showed how football has been robbed from the communities it grew out of They were still stars but but still part of the communities that supported them.
I suggest anyone who appreciates this should read Gary Imlach’s book “my father and other Working Class football hero’s” which covers the football in the post war era.
I believe when Bobby Robson managed Newcastle he grew tired of the excesses associated with the game. This was illustrated when Kieron Dyer left a £65000 diamond earing in the Albion changing room resulting Dyer requesting Robson to turn the Newcastle coach round on its journey north and return to the Hawthorns for him to retrieve his ear ring. How ironic as Robson in the film comes across as a ordinary bloke enjoying ordinary things with both his feet firmly on the ground.
Good insight of how life was of my place of birth 4 years before i was born and to see legends such as don howe and bobby robson in such humble surroundings.
What comparissons to the footballer of today even the clip of a baggies player taking out his teeth before the game and coming to the end of their careers having to find alternative employment and re-train.
Thank you
Bully life long baggie
Video no longer available. Any chance of uploading it again.
video no longer available.I left it all day and wanted to watch it now with a bit of dinner and its no longer available
Left the video until tonight as we had visitors – now it’s unobtainable – my cousin was featured too!!! AAAAhhhggg
What a fantastic short film, I raved about it all day then it was gone. A great piece of social documentary which just showed how football has been robbed from the communities it grew out of They were still stars but but still part of the communities that supported them.
I suggest anyone who appreciates this should read Gary Imlach’s book “my father and other Working Class football hero’s” which covers the football in the post war era.
I believe when Bobby Robson managed Newcastle he grew tired of the excesses associated with the game. This was illustrated when Kieron Dyer left a £65000 diamond earing in the Albion changing room resulting Dyer requesting Robson to turn the Newcastle coach round on its journey north and return to the Hawthorns for him to retrieve his ear ring. How ironic as Robson in the film comes across as a ordinary bloke enjoying ordinary things with both his feet firmly on the ground.