As someone who studied in Nottingham during the late 90s and into the 00s, Nottingham Forest were a team with legacy. They were also a team on their way down.
A sad situation for a club so loved and so respected. For their fans this had been ever more painful for they had been the team that won a brace of European glories. The way they achieved that feat is central to LOCAL HEROES, John Warrington’s love letter to the club. A love letter that is more and less than the sum of its parts. It is part renegade. Filmed in a way to capture rugged and grimy, the snippets of these men, then boys. Its about as beat poetry as I can see. These local stars changed their fortunes and their cities forever.
The story of LOCAL HEROES is that of three young working-class lads from Nottingham. They were at a Nottingham Forest side under the mercurial eye of Brian Clough. He was a dynamo. Dynamic and socilaist. He would be there to win the European Cup twice, in 1979 and 1980. Viv Anderson, the son of Jamaican immigrants, Gary Birtles was a former carpet fitter, and Tony Woodcock, a Nottingham schoolboy with a dream of being Denis Law. They were growing up in a cultural and economic backdrop of Britain in the 70’s. Dirt and grime, poverty and austerity left many in despair. Narrated by former Minder star, Gary Webster, this is a story for our times.
Now, cards on the table, I am a United fan. Me, my dad and my grandfather support and supported (my grandfather is now passed) the club through thick and win.
Our link to LOCAL HEREOS is the legend that is Viv Anderson. Anderson, first black footballer to play for England, played for United and Arsenal after a mammoth spell at Forest. Great pedigree indeed. John Warrington works this angle softly. He is more keen on the stories of a collective that were similar and connected. The pain they suffer. The goals that saved them. A lot to take in. Stripped down and feed to us almost raw. Having made documentaries like this myself, this is a labour of love and a hard fought creation from a place that is often hostile.
There is another link to Forest and Anderson for me, I lived in Clifton, a working class, deprived part on the edge of the city. My university sat next to it. This place is revisited and explored in the documentary. It is the heart of a city. Its people and its passage of hardships. The film is as much about football as it is about the city. Old places are seen with fresh, teared welling eyes. Old success are made now. That is the film at its heart. Its a tale of bleary eyed sadness of a time that has passed, a dream that was fulfilled and the reality that we are back and forth in time to the same situation again.
