Kosher Movies: The Damned United

In retrospect, I have had a wonderful career in Jewish education, the highlight of which was in Atlanta from 1970 through 1998. The school I led was Yeshiva High School of Atlanta and its enrollment grew from 36 to approximately 200 during my long and occasionally turbulent tenure.

I never for one moment thought that the success of the school was due to my efforts alone. That would be both arrogant and untrue. It succeeded because of many people: teachers, office staff, lay leaders, all of whom left an indelible mark on the school’s history.

For me, in particular, success resulted because of an extraordinary teaching staff that cared deeply for the students, that was extremely skilled, and that was dedicated to the welfare of the school and its students. Success was always measured by how well the students did academically and spiritually, not by increasing enrollment numbers alone. For the staff, the more important question was whether the students were touched and influenced by the ethos of the institution?

How to measure success in the arena of competitive sports is the subject of The Damned United, an unflinching look at the coaching tactics of Brian Clough, manager of an English soccer team. Although a professional sports team is different from a school, there are similarities. In both arenas, it is never one man that brings success; rather it is one man working with others that can change outcomes in an organization.

Brian Clough, manager of the lowly Second Division Derby soccer team aspires to coach a First Division team. When the chance comes to manage the highly successful Leeds United team, he jumps at the opportunity, leaving his long time assistant Peter Taylor behind.

Things, however, do not work out well for Brian in his new job. He immediately sabotages his relationship with his new players by berating them for their unsportsmanlike behavior in the past. Clough does this because of a long-standing antipathy for Leed’s former manager Don Revie, who ignored Clough when he came to Darby in 1967 to play Clough’s team. Clough, insulted by Revie’s slight of him, viewed the disrespect as intentional. This incident haunts him and often motivates his actions in the present.

Clough continues to alienate his players by constantly criticizing them and the team loses game after game until management fires him. After that sobering moment, Clough realizes his mistakes and seeks reconciliation with his former partner and best friend Peter Taylor. When the two friends finally hug and renew the loving ties that bound them when they first started working together, the relationship is restored.

The reconciliation comes about when Clough realizes that whatever success he has had is not due to his efforts alone, but to the efforts of Peter Taylor as well. Clough finally moves from arrogance to humility, ushering in a period of professional success where they again begin working with inexperienced players and enable them to win championships that far exceed past achievements.

Jewish tradition has much to say about arrogance and humility, polar opposites of human character. While self-confidence and self-esteem are praised, arrogance is viewed as a serious character flaw because the arrogant person assumes he knows it all. He does not allow room for the contribution of others, and so has a distorted view of reality. He is is so full of himself, there is no space either for God or other men to enter.

In contrast is the trait of humility, which presumes that man is imperfect, that he both fails and succeeds in life, and that God is ultimately in charge of the results of one’s actions. As the Sages caution in the Ethics of the Father, “be very, very humble.” The repetition of the word “very” suggests that one has to be overly concerned about succumbing to the aphrodisiac of arrogance.

Brian Clough’s journey from arrogance to humility in The Damned United reminds us that success in life in most cases requires one to be humble and acknowledge the contribution of others. It is only through the “one of us” that true success is achieved.