WHEN WE THINK of Northern Ireland’s World Cup history, there’s one moment that jumps to the front of our minds – Gerry Armstrong’s goal against Spain in 1982.
But 24 years prior, the country made the last eight of the tournament in Sweden. It’s an achievement forgotten by many. And it’s why Evan Marshall has just made a documentary film about it.
“It was eight years ago, when it was coming up to the 50th anniversary of the tournament – that’s when I first thought of the idea for it”, Marshall told The42.
“We pitched the project for TV but it didn’t work out for various reasons. I always felt slightly sad that it didn’t happen because there were eleven of the players still alive then and they would’ve been able to tell their story which was the whole point of it. About three years ago, I discovered it had gone down to just five players still alive and I thought ‘Good grief, someone should’ve made that’. And I thought, ‘You know what, I’ll just go and start recording it myself.’”
Clackity Films / Vimeo
The result is Spirit of ’58 which gets its world premiere at the Belfast Film Festival later tonight. It’s the culmination of a remarkable journey for Marshall, who has spent many years working in local TV in Northern Ireland but had never directed before. Just a few short years ago, the canvass was bare. The idea was fine, he just needed to figure out a way of making it work. And then he found a kindred spirit.
“One of my former colleagues was Ben Price and I knew he had set out freelancing, had his own editing company and was doing his own camera-work. I had seen some of his work and liked it and what I needed was a camera-man and an editor. I knew he was quite passionate about the idea from a few years earlier so we had lunch one day and I said ‘Listen, remember that football idea? Well, there’s only five of these guys left alive and I don’t want them all to go without telling the story. Do you fancy making it with me? I can’t pay you, we’ve got no budget, we’ve got nothing. Are you in?’ And Ben said ‘I’m in’ and that was it. And it’s been the two of us working on it ever since.”
The film charts Northern Ireland’s meteoric rise from struggling, seemingly irrelevant football nation to one of the best teams in the world – culminating in their immense performance in 1958 – the country’s very first World Cup appearance. Featuring interviews and insights with the five surviving members of the squad - Billy Bingham, Harry Gregg, Jimmy McIlroy, Peter McParland and Billy Simpson – it provides a startling look at what proved a remarkable spell in the country’s football history.
“Northern Ireland had been something of a joke team in the 1940s and early 1950s and they turned that around monumentally to become what was undoubtedly the best team in Britain by 1958″, says Marshall.
It was a team of real superstars. Danny Blanchflower is one of the most famous footballers of all time. Harry Gregg was the most expensive goalkeeper in the world at the time. There was Jimmy McIlroy from Burnley. Peter McParland scored both goals for Aston Villa in the 1957 FA Cup final so it was a team that really peaked. They were a group that got absolutely annihilated in the home international each year against England and Scotland. And then all of a sudden, this generation of players comes out of nowhere and under the guidance of a great ex-Northern Ireland player in Peter Doherty – who becomes their first ever manager – they turn things around and become this great team.”
In qualifying, the team memorably topped their group after a 2-1 win over Italy in Belfast. But just a few weeks later, the Munich Air Crash occurred with 23 of the 43 passengers on board losing their lives – the majority of them Manchester United players. Gregg, recently signed by the club, survived and pulled a number of people from the wreckage, including a mother and baby. Jackie Blanchflower, younger brother of Danny, also survived but never played again.
Such a story provides a harrowing subplot to the film while there’s also a wealth of relatively new and staggering information that Marshall stumbled upon during the research phase that adds another layer to the narrative.
“The Irish Football Association (IFA) itself tried to stop Northern Ireland from going to the World Cup because they were going to be playing on Sundays and that went against the rule that was in place at the time about not playing on the Sabbath.
“Some of the World Cup games were going to be held on Sundays so after Northern Ireland performed heroics by beating Italy to qualify for the World Cup, all of these churches aligned to the IFA and had all of these voting powers said ‘You’re not going’.
“And it was this hugely embarrassing situation where it looked like they were going to have to turn down going to the World Cup. I remember when I found out I thought, ‘My God, this story has just got even better’. It was just typically Northern Irish where we’d actually try and stop ourselves from going.”
The beauty of Spirit of ’58 is that it shines a light not just on the high-profile characters but on the under-stated figures within the squad that made their own memories, especially the incredible tale of sub-goalkeeper Norman Uprichard.
“Harry Gregg plays the game of his life against West Germany and in that game (where Northern Ireland picked up a 2-2 draw), he really earns himself the goalkeeper of the tournament title which he eventually picks up.
But he damaged his ankle so he had a walking stick with him when the team headed off for their play-off with Czechoslovakia to see who’d go through to the quarter-finals.”
“So the stand-in goalkeeper is Norman Uprichard – and he does his ankle ligaments within the first few minutes. So he’s on one leg, essentially because he can’t run and can’t move. Gerry Morgan, the Northern Ireland trainer, comes on and pours two bottles of whisky onto Uprichard’s ankle to try and ease the swelling. I’m not sure what medical benefit that had or why he even had two bottles of whisky in his trainer’s bag but he did!
There were no substitutions allowed in those days so you had to play on with injured players. Then in the second half, Uprichard tries to makes a save and breaks his hand against the post. But he plays the rest of the match, which goes into extra-time, with one hand and one leg.
You can actually see in the footage some of the Northern Ireland players hurling themselves at the ball so that he doesn’t have to do anything because he’s so badly injured.”
“In the next game, of course, he’s out and can’t play so Gregg had to throw away his walking stick and play again against Brazil in the quarter-finals. It was just absolute heroism.”
The premiere in Belfast tonight is sold out but Marshall is pushing hard to ensure the film will gain a wider audience soon.
“I want to share it with the people of Northern Ireland. We’ll try and get it on television somewhere and we’ll be working to that end. That is the aim. There’s a sports documentary festival in LA and we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t enter it for that. There’s another festival in Sweden which would be relevant and there will probably be another couple of screenings in England too.”
Having seen a passion project germinate and finally flourish, Marshall is just thankful he’s got to properly pay tribute to a magnificent and often overlooked sporting achievement.
“I didn’t know what I would be doing it for – film or TV – but I wanted to go and do it because I didn’t want those five remaining players to go without telling their story.”
