REVIEW: STEVE BRUCE'S CAPTAIN'S LOG 1992/93
It's no secret that I wasn't Steve Bruce's biggest fan when he was manager of Aston Villa. Chippy, arrogant, an outright liar at times yet simultaneously pretty rubbish at his actual job, he could almost have been a Prime Ministerial candidate. Ahem, no politics today. Anyway, I had him down as an incorrigible berk. But inspired by the frankly superb work from the good folk at Quickly Kevin in reviewing his supremely nonsensical trilogy of books, I decided to have a look at the ostensible video diary that he seemed to have been tasked with during the run in of the 1992/93 season. Quite why you would pick Wor Brucie for such a task I don't know. The media is an odd, odd world. Let's face it, I spent my Friday night watching this, I'm in no position to comment.
As with much else in the Bruniverse, not much of this has any structure. I'll do my best to break it up for you, but I can only do so much. Think of it as working with a front pairing of Frank Nouble and Jake Cassidy and hoping to win promotion.
We can start with the titles and excuse me, but would you look at the fucking size of this camera.
That's not just "a bit big". This is 1993 and Sharp were hawking around their comparatively tiny Viewcam on the front of United's shirts within months. Clearly the club sponsors didn't trust the big lug with anything valuable and just chucked a 1982 model that they found at the back of the factory at him. It's a miracle he didn't miss the final few games with a shoulder injury. You might also note (and I'd forgotten this) that Steve was still rocking his sheep-type mullet long into the 90s. Sadly, as with footballing style, he forever seems to be several years behind the times. He's probably listening to a Razorlight CD right now, musing on how down with the kids he is.
On to business and let's see how this pans out:
Structure
Er, yeah. This is an odd one. I've watched this all the way through and I'm still none the wiser what this actually is. At first I thought it was some kind of an in-house VHS (we had our very own Molinews around the same time, for all those who wanted to see the rubbish midfielder Paul Jones play snooker on his day off in an acceptably dingy club) but it appears to be split into parts, as if there are meant to be ad breaks. MUTV didn't exist then, so it's not a show to fill the endless hours on there where they aren't talking about That Wonderful Night In Barcelona (that's just Ole's team talks).
Now, I get that this was a relatively new thing back then, so I'm not asking for Scorsese levels of polish. But this is something else. The whole thing is full of awkward silences, conversations that go precisely nowhere and sections appear and disappear at random. Even allowing for the fact that this was ripped from the original when I watched it, the audio quality is atrocious. Alex Ferguson is interviewed a couple of times and I haven't got a clue what he's saying, and I'm normally quite good at understanding the Scottish...people.
It's hard to understand what the whole point of it is. It's billed as a video diary kind of thing, but large parts of it are taken up by match highlights that have nothing to do with Steve Bruce and would have been covered by a season review for any budding Red back in the day. Somehow I found myself more confused by the end than I was when I started off.
The lead cast:
Steve Bruce
The man, the myth, the legend himself. Now as I say, I find him to be quite an objectionable chap these days, but in the heady days of 1993 there was quite an innocent side to the big lad. The dynamic between him and the rest of the squad is odd. He's not in on the joke when the younger lads in the group are talking with each other, like David Brent trying to join in. He seems to be barred from talking to Eric Cantona at all (he appears for a scant amount of time, speaking in French about his broken wrist) and most oddly of all, Denis Irwin has absolutely no time for him at all. Brucie bounds over (as best you can with 18lb of video camera on your shoulder) after his goal against Coventry and receives nothing back at all. Of all the tiffs in football, I never expected that to be one.
Sadly, he's not the greatest presenter, narrator, interviewer or indeed anything. He opens up on an admirably bog standard piece of 90s garden furniture (similar to what we had - rest assured that my Dad was not a Premier League footballer, so either Pops was spending serious dough on chairs to be used 5-6 times a year, or Steve Bruce was very frugal) by saying that he'll "probably be bloody awful". Everything is very stilted indeed. We do get a brief glimpse into his Sunday morning as he reviews his famous two goals against Sheffield Wednesday. There's a nice throw forward to his books where he only appears to be reading tabloids rather than the "quality papers" (his alter ego Steve Barnes has quite the chip on his shoulder about education, so he'd bloody love me quoting Voltaire and Kafka all over the place) and strangely at least two of the reports seem to be cut out from the rest of the paper. But then who am I to dictate what Steve Bruce does with his newspaper on a Sunday morning. Perhaps they're for his own personal scrapbook, which is quite sweet in a way.
He also becomes very proud of his "improving video technique" after a while and runs a "soccer clinic" for kids at an undisclosed location. Oddly he never seems to have bothered with any young players at any club he's ever managed so I can only assume that these lads properly pissed him off.
They seem to do away with the video diary bit after a while and just follow other people around, entirely in keeping with the haphazard sense of the whole thing. And they are:
Peter Schmeichel
Only appears in one scene but what a scene. We pick it up halfway through a mundane conversation (this is a recurring theme) that seems to be surrounding national identity - don't worry, it's a lot less highbrow and involved than it sounds. Anyway, at some point ze Chermans get mentioned and Big Pete promptly gets into a bit of a goosestep, Stan Boardman style impression.
Now, this is the early 90s and I'm not going to have a retrospective go at that kind of thing. The baffling point is that they warn the Great Dane that it's on camera, he looks a bit embarrassed, and then they leave it in the final edit. May I ask who exactly is in charge here?! Awkwardly, right after this bit, Steve does a bit of a voiceover telling us that "the dressing room humour is brilliant". Pick your moments, Steve.
Presumably was told his video diary career was over there and then. Sad really.
Paul Ince
Comes across as a complete and utter wanker. In other news, grass is green, water is wet and Joao Moutinho is quite good. Even allowing for the appalling level of audio quality which means you struggle to pick up a lot of what is actually being said, he just babbles on forever in the most incomprehensible manner. Seems to want some kind of Bert and Ernie style relationship with Ryan Giggs (more of whom later) who seemingly has no interest. I suppose you could say it's unfair of me to judge him on what is barely two minutes of footage from a crappy video from more than 25 years ago. Maybe it is. I don't care, he's a prick.
Lee Sharpe
In what is a thoroughly confusing production throughout, it takes some doing to be the most confusing person. Lee Sharpe fits the bill perfectly. We seem to be following on his day off (I can't stress enough how little narrative this whole thing has, so I'm filling in gaps on my own here) where he does the following:
Goes to a mattress shop not to buy a mattress, but just to waste some time. Young Lee was revered as one of the big party boys of the early 90s so to see him considering soft furnishings as leisure time is quite jarring. He seems quite pleased by the whole affair, dutifully filmed by his captain. Imagine the poor old salesman, confronted by an England winger ostensibly interested in a new bed followed by Steve fucking Bruce with a gigantic camera. He's probably still having nightmares about it now. And he never got that bloody commission.
Plays drums in his house. This is also good for wasting time apparently.
Goes off on some odd segue about pensions and investments, where he simultaneously says you should put away as much as you can, while also opining that money is there for spending and he'll probably blow as much as he can for the next couple of years while he's young and then settle down. Possibly the most poignant bit of the whole piece as we all know that Lee Sharpe wanked his career up against the wall in the end.
Ryan Giggs
It might be a surprise to younger readers who only know Ryan from his dead shark eyes punditry and bland Welsh managerial interviews, but he was quite the star around 1993. Probably the biggest name in British football. So we get a rare insight into the man himself. He wasn't any more interesting then, as it turns out.
As I say, he seems to resist all of Incey Ince's attempts at wicked bantz. By this stage he apparently hasn't done any interviews but much as the intrepid Bruce tries, he can't force him to make his debut in this masterpiece. "Talk to my agent" is the answer. It's like having a conversation with the automated voice at a train station.
In one of those weird moments where the action completely shifts without warning, we end up following Giggsy around for a while (Steve appears to be absent, or if he is there, he doesn't say anything. Who can say). None of it has any structure whatsoever. He eats a bit, he plays snooker and/or pool (we don't see) and for a lovely touching Christmas moment, he waits for his brother Rhodri at Victoria coach station after Giggs the Younger has had a trial with Torquay. Maybe they can watch that together this year. Or not.
Ryan is very proud of his Brand New Heavies and Kenny Thomas CDs, which I applaud. I still have D:Ream's first album on cassette if he wants to borrow it.
Summary
I didn't know what to expect from this when I went in. I came out more confused than when I started. I can only liken it to being pushed around a pub full of people you don't know, listening to conversations halfway through and then being pushed away to the next group before you've heard the end. Occasionally your kindly old uncle talks a bit of drivel to you that has no connection to anything. I still don't know what the market was here, other than desperate United fans and they really should have waited until 2019 for that phenomenon.
I don't recommend you watch it. But if there are any other terrible 90s documentaries you'd like me to review, please do let me know on Twitter or whatever. I clearly have nothing better to do.