Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Football, film and a rich seam of proud history

A thought-provoking feature film, produced and directed by two supporters, about a football team that made history on the pitch and brought a community together off it has just been released.

Daydream Believers is a film about Barnsley Football Club’s historic promotion to the Premier League during the 1996/97 First Division campaign and subsequent season at the top.

It essentially chronicles a two-year period, but context is crucial and the film-makers rightly set the piece over a much wider period of time.

The film begins with some wonderful archive footage of Barnsley versus Manchester City in the League Cup fourth round in 1981, played in front of nearly 34,000 at Oakwell.

It was the biggest game before the miners’ strike three years later when crowds dropped away until the Tykes were struggling to get even 5,000 through the turnstiles.

The pit closures of the Thatcher government in the early 1980s are central to the club’s fortunes.

There were 18 pits within the area and more than 25,000 people found themselves confronting the prospect of unemployment and the implications that would have on their families.

The infrastructure and services built up around the mining industry were deeply affected too and it became one of the bleakest periods in the town’s history.

The miners’ strike pitted local communities against the government and the police.

When some miners crossed the picket lines, it ripped families apart.

It was a deliberate intention of the Thatcher government aimed at turning its opponents against each other, a tactic still used today with the demonisation of those who need the support of the welfare state to survive.

Ken Loach, one of the interviewees and director of the award-winning film Kes – set in Barnsley – describes it as a ‘conscious cruelty’ which aptly sums up the treatment of the local community.

Barnsley manager Danny Wilson, his captain Neil Redfearn and their merry band of footballers were not here to right the wrongs of the past, but it is quickly apparent in Daydream Believers that they understood the environment they were cast in.

Money was scarce and fans made sacrifices if they wanted to cough up cash for a match ticket.

The club had been surviving on gates that barely covered costs.

Then there was the Taylor Report, produced in the aftermath of the Valley Parade and Hillsborough disasters, which required the antiquated Oakwell ground to be updated.

Chairman John Dennis is a pivotal figure in the club’s history.

His father, Ernest, was chairman from 1967-1979 and the club runs deep in the family’s blood. John himself took the helm between 1989 and 2002. Guiding Barnsley out of its 1980s nadir was the toughest of challenges.

The ground is redeveloped at considerable expense and when Wilson replaces Viv Anderson as manager, there is a transformation of the team too.

They are a loveable bunch of players. Hard-working British pros like Nicky Eaden, Darren Sheridan and John Hendrie team up with oversesas characters such as Trinidadian striker Clint Marcelle and Dutch defender Arjan De Zeeuw.

“Even though initially I thought, ‘Where the hell did I end up?’ I ended up at a very warm passionate place with people that are rough on the edge but warm inside,” De Zeeuw concludes.

When Wilson’s team beats Bradford City at home and is promoted to the Premier League in April 1997, ahead of Mark McGhee’s expensively-assembled Wolves side, the enormity of the achievement sinks in.

“Obviously I thought of my father and the toll, the struggles, that he had in Barnsley all his life and of course I thought of our poor benighted town,” Dennis says, in a touching exchange. “I suppose that day was the first day of unalloyed joy that the town had had for years and years and years.”

The juxtaposition that existed in the Premier League is summed up by journalist Henry Winter.

“The gleaming palace of the Premier League with all the Beckhams, Bergkamps, Zolas and Viallis and this Yorkshire town that had clearly fallen on hard times, even to those of us who had never been there before, it was fantastic.”

Despite some modest team strengthening, Barnsley struggled from the off among the mightier beasts of the top flight, but in among some heavy defeats were some real highlights.

A 1-0 win over Liverpool at Anfield in November is recalled with particular fondness.

Out on a walkabout in Liverpool city centre on the eve of the match, Wilson decided that another pep talk was not what was needed and instead took the players into a pub.

“We just sat in the pub drinking a pint, watched a bit of football and played some darts,” recalls De Zeeuw. “It was such a strange preparation, but it worked.”

Real life fairytales don’t always have a happy ending. Despite giving it their best shot, Barnsley were relegated.

“You’ve just lost that feeling of being on top of the world,” says defender Scott Jones.

But it did not tarnish the overall achievement.

“Immense pride that I was the first captain of Barnsley at that level,” Redfearn reflects. “Proud of the fact that we had come together as a community. It wasn’t just about the 11 on the pitch, it was about all of us.”

And as the manager himself points out: “You can never take memories away, you can’t buy the memories.”

Daydream Believers is a beautifully-told football story.

But more than that, it is about the restoration of civic pride.