This Sporting Life

[Dunbar]

For anyone who hasn't seen the classic 1960's Rugby League drama or for anyone wondering what some of our (let's say) more mature contributors on here are pining for then This Sporting Life is on tomorrow.

London Live... SKY Channel 117 @ 1.00pm.

[Cheshire Setter]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

For anyone who hasn't seen the classic 1960's Rugby League drama or for anyone wondering what some of our (let's say) more mature contributors on here are pining for then This Sporting Life is on tomorrow.

London Live... SKY Channel 117 @ 1.00pm.

Never used to be a daytime movie...   a bit too gritty for pre-watershed.

Iconic movie that deserves more plaudits than it gets, and Richard Harris carries it off perfectly.

[Man of Kent]

And if you don’t have London Live, watch it o’ t’owd You T’ube

Used to play t’ball proper like in them days n’all.

[Cheshire Setter]

18 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

And if you don’t have London Live, watch it o’ t’owd You T’ube

Used to play t’ball proper like in them days n’all.

Who’d have thought, Rigsby and Captain Mainwaring watching a game of RL

[Oxford]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

For anyone who hasn't seen the classic 1960's Rugby League drama or for anyone wondering what some of our (let's say) more mature contributors on here are pining for then This Sporting Life is on tomorrow.

London Live... SKY Channel 117 @ 1.00pm.

Great film

[Man of Kent]

Great footage of what Belle Vue used to be like

[Cheshire Setter]

38 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Great footage of what Belle Vue used to be like

What RL could’ve been if managed the right way

[Man of Kent]

2 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

What RL could’ve been if managed the right way

Some clubs have been managed well. Some not so well, not least Wakefield. Belle Vue is an embarrassment in this day and age.

[Cheshire Setter]

8 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Some clubs have been managed well. Some not so well, not least Wakefield. Belle Vue is an embarrassment in this day and age.

I mean the crowd shots of about 30,000 avid spectators...   imagine if we filled the average soccer-sized stadium every week for Super League.   I’ve been to a fair few NRL games with that sort of crowd but they don’t make it a cauldron like the Brits would.

[Wollo Wollo Wayoo]

1 hour ago, Man of Kent said:

Great footage of what Belle Vue used to be like

Great footage of what the city centre used to be like too.

[Padge]

1 hour ago, Man of Kent said:

Great footage of what Belle Vue used to be like

Full of cardboard cut-outs to make a crowd.

[Man of Kent]

11 minutes ago, Padge said:

Full of cardboard cut-outs to make a crowd.

Hoho!

[Agbrigg]

1 hour ago, Man of Kent said:

Some clubs have been managed well. Some not so well, not least Wakefield. Belle Vue is an embarrassment in this day and age.

Nah you're wrong. The plan was to preserve the ground as it was in the hope of using it for a further setting should they make the sequel sporting life 2

[Man of Kent]

9 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Nah you're wrong. The plan was to preserve the ground as it was in the hope of using it for a further setting should they make the sequel sporting life 2

Like it.

What would Frank/Arthur Machin’s grandson be up to in 2019? Sex, drugs, tattoos and Instagram?

[Padge]

1 minute ago, Man of Kent said:

Like it.

What would Frank/Arthur Machin’s grandson be up to in 2019? Sex, drugs, tattoos and Instagram?

You think he would have signed for Wigan 

[Man of Kent]

3 minutes ago, Padge said:

You think he would have signed for Wigan 

Canberra. 

I’d love to see a remake. Unlike many sports, rugby league is still played by normal blokes who haven’t vanished up their own Richard Harris and seem to live pretty normal lives. Would work.

 

[Southerner80]

26 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Canberra. 

I’d love to see a remake. Unlike many sports, rugby league is still played by normal blokes who haven’t vanished up their own Richard Harris and seem to live pretty normal lives. Would work.

 

I agree it would work well, if set in Pontefract and based around Castleford for example or Wigan and based in Wigan. 

[Hopping Mad]

14 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

And if you don’t have London Live, watch it o’ t’owd You T’ube

Used to play t’ball proper like in them days n’all.

That's Ken Traill, on the right. Ex-GB, Hunslet, Bradford, Halifax and Wakefield.

The film's main Belle Vue action sequences were shot before and during a Wakefield-Wigan Challenge Cup third round tie in April 1962. The all-ticket crowd - a post-war record attendance at Belle Vue - was 28,254. Historian Trevor Delaney says some cardboard replicas (of spectators) were used.

Some rugby union-esque tackling Richard Harris (a union player) brushes aside during the 'A' team match early in the film!

In a 1999 British Film Institute poll, TSL was voted the 52nd best 20th century British film. York-born actor Mark Addy wearing a Sheffield Eagles away shirt undoubtedly helped The Full Monty sneak in at No 25.

 

[bromleybulldog]

32 minutes ago, Hopping Mad said:

That's Ken Traill, on the right. Ex-GB, Hunslet, Bradford, Halifax and Wakefield.

The film's main Belle Vue action sequences were shot before and during a Wakefield-Wigan Challenge Cup third round tie in April 1962. The all-ticket crowd - a post-war record attendance at Belle Vue - was 28,254. Historian Trevor Delaney says some cardboard replicas (of spectators) were used.

Some rugby union-esque tackling Richard Harris (a union player) brushes aside during the 'A' team match early in the film!

In a 1999 British Film Institute poll, TSL was voted the 52nd best 20th century British film. York-born actor Mark Addy wearing a Sheffield Eagles away shirt undoubtedly helped The Full Monty sneak in at No 25.

 

The pre match sequences required Harris to score a try. I seem to remember there being numerous 'takes' of the sequence.  The crowd managed to be enthusiastic and cheer for the first couple but by the time the director was happy(can't remember how many takes they had but it was plenty) jeers and ridicule were about the only reaction. Think they must have spliced the early enthusiasm onto the final on field action!!

 

Certainly no cardboard replicas/cut outs near where I was!

[Trojan]

15 hours ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Who’d have thought, Rigsby and Captain Mainwaring watching a game of RL

Leonard Rossiter turns up in similar parts in a lot of gritty sixties films.  I was watching "A Kind of Loving" the other day (written by Ossett man Stan Barstow) and he was in that. Also Billy Liar, he played Mr Shadrack Billy's undertaker employer.  

Arthur Lowe played Mr Swindley in early Coronation Street.  He ran a clothing company called Gamma Garments, one of his staff was called Doreen Lostock, which gave Swindley the classic line "there appears to be some stock lost, Miss erm Lostock"

[Hopping Mad]

28 minutes ago, bromleybulldog said:

The pre match sequences required Harris to score a try. I seem to remember there being numerous 'takes' of the sequence.  The crowd managed to be enthusiastic and cheer for the first couple but by the time the director was happy(can't remember how many takes they had but it was plenty) jeers and ridicule were about the only reaction. Think they must have spliced the early enthusiasm onto the final on field action!!

 

Certainly no cardboard replicas/cut outs near where I was!

I wonder if Trevor was confusing that game with the 'A' team fixture earlier in the film? There are certainly cardboard cut-outs - on the main stand paddock - in that.

How long ago was it a rugby league player last abused another, even a team-mate, by calling him a "nut" or a "prog"?!

[Trojan]

13 hours ago, Padge said:

Full of cardboard cut-outs to make a crowd.

I was there for a cup tie v Wigan in 1961 and there was a 28K crowd, no cardboard cut-outs that day.  Wigan won 2-0. Fred Griffiths penalty.

 

[Hopping Mad]

7 minutes ago, Trojan said:

Leonard Rossiter turns up in similar parts in a lot of gritty sixties films.  I was watching "A Kind of Loving" the other day (written by Ossett man Stan Barstow) and he was in that.   Arthur Lowe played Mr Swindley in early Coronation Street.  He ran a clothing company called Gamma Garments, one of his staff was called Doreen Lostock, which gave Swindley the classic line "there appears to be some stock lost, Miss erm Lostock"

By coincidence, last Saturday I drove past Hayfield (Arthur Lowe's birthplace), en route from York to Stoke, and stopped off briefly to view the blue plaque adorning his childhood home.

https://www.buxtonadvertiser.co.uk/news/corrie-star-honoured-on-his-street-1-3731378

[Trojan]

28 minutes ago, Hopping Mad said:

By coincidence, last Saturday I drove past Hayfield (Arthur Lowe's birthplace), en route from York to Stoke, and stopped off briefly to view the blue plaque adorning his childhood home.

https://www.buxtonadvertiser.co.uk/news/corrie-star-honoured-on-his-street-1-3731378

The first Dr Who (William Hartnell) is also in it

 

[Hopping Mad]

25 minutes ago, Trojan said:

The first Dr Who (William Hartnell) is also in it

 

Yes, taking rugby league to distant galaxies...