The Class of 92: trebles all round

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/03/class-92-trebles-round-manchester-united-alex-fergusonScholes the joker, Schmeichel scalding his privates, Beckham just one of the lads … Tom Horan on a film that casts a new light on 90s Manchester and its football heroes

Tom Horan - The Guardian, Tue 3 Dec 2013

How many documentaries can claim to capture the spirit of an era through the reflections of an ex-prime minister – and the story of a Danish goalkeeper scalding his penis on a giant tea urn? Not many. But it is unquestionably true of The Class of 92, the British film that premiered this week in London.

The Class of 92 is remarkable not just for being an excellent film about football, a subject that rarely translates to the big screen, but for being about so much more. Using interviews and archive footage, it follows six Manchester United players who met in their early teens and together won every honour in club football. But what emerges through the reminiscences of David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers is the story of the time and place where they came of age: the optimism of Manchester, and Britain itself, in the 1990s.

"In the 60, 70s and 80s, Liverpool had an incredible time, with music and football," says Gary Neville early on. "And in some ways, this past 20 years has been Manchester's time: the Stone Roses, Oasis, United winning the league." To a soundtrack of the Stone Roses singing Waterfall, we watch Alex Ferguson's whey-faced youngsters win the 1992 FA youth cup, lost inside shirts that seem tailored for giants.

"Manchester reinvented itself," says United fan and film director Danny Boyle, one of a string of non-footballing contributors that includes Tony Blair and Stone Roses bassist Mani. "It didn't wait for a leader to do that for it. In fact, it took the lack of interest that was clearly shown to it by Margaret Thatcher's premiership as the signal to do things for itself. There are some great northern cities that actually aren't beholden to anyone. And no matter how bad it gets, they will always regenerate themselves. The football team – and especially United – is a symbol of that."

While the city around them is blossoming, the group of apprentices are forcing their way into the first team of the club that came to define the decade. "Growing up in Manchester in the 90s was just massive," says Butt. "We would be going to the Haçienda, the Boardwalk, to concerts like Spike Island. It was a special time. I remember one time the whole Man United team went to the Hacienda. It wouldn't happen nowadays."

It is Butt who explains how his dressing-room prank with a tea urn gave United keeper Peter Schmeichel a nasty blister – and The Class of 92 is exceptional in what it coaxes from its football-playing subjects. The usual post-match platitudes are replaced by animated and often hilarious stories.The film's directors, brothers Ben and Gabe Turner, were approached by the players themselves to make the film, which goes some way to explaining the rounded and human characters that emerge. The taciturn Scholes as a master of the sardonic non sequitur – who knew?

As historian Alwyn Turner's new book A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s demonstrates, the era does now seem to be at the correct remove to be assessed with clarity, which is why the Turner brothers should be praised for lifting their film beyond mere sporting document. "What those young guys felt was possible of them as players," says Tony Blair, "found a curious kind of echo in culture, art, and politics. What, on rational analysis, was impossible became imbued by a spirit of possibility – and was actually done."

Giggs turned 40 last week, the rest of the players are nearing that. The rapport between them is clearly unchanged, with even Beckham – the global brand – just one of the gang. Revisiting the 90s through the film, it is perhaps sad to reflect that so much of the decade's excitement and optimism petered out as the New Labour project lost its way. What has endured, for this group of friends, is what they achieved by working for and with each other: the remarkable treble of league, FA cup and Champions League victories in 1999.

The Class of 92 distils the spirit of an era, but ultimately shows that the power of teamwork is a timeless quality. As Boyle recalls: "In the years preceding, there was a feeling that the public spirit had disappeared. This long period of individuality, selfishness – 'there's no such thing as society' – led inexorably to us wanting to re-establish a sense of idealism."

And what does Eric Cantona, the wise old hand who helped the youngsters make their dreams come true, think of it? "It is a perfect script. Only sport can give you this kind of emotion."