THE AMERICAN DREAM

JUST WHEN you thought the traumas of that agonising night at Windsor Park last month had subsided along comes a ninety-minute package designed to drag you screaming back through eighteen months of shredded nerves, sudden mood-swings and distended bladders. And we’re expected to pay for the privilege?!?! I’ll take two please!

The Road To America – One Team, One Nation, One Dream is the bouncing offspring of Treasure Films, a company set up by producer Robert Walpole and director Paddy Breathnach three years ago, and to arrive at the finished article the crew travelled to all of Ireland’s away games in Group 3 in addition to covering all the matches at Lansdowne Road, with the exception of our first outing against Albania, at which point the film was still in the dark and confined space known as ‘the pipeline’.

Although this is the most ambitious project Treasure Films have undertaken, the pair proved both their narrative knack and love of The Beautiful Game with Street of Dreams, an evocative look at junior club St. Francis’ participation in the 1990 FAI Cup Final against Bray Wanderers . . and this despite the fact that both the chaps are from Bray!

“It’s funny,” says Paddy, “Colm Toibín wrote that he thought Street Of Dreams was a good film about an unpromising subject, whereas most football fans would regard the romantic aspect of what St. Francis achieved as being ideal subject matter for a documentary. This is the complete opposite. We were coming into something where there was going to be lots happening and we knew it was going to be difficult to get a unique angle because there are so many perceptions already formed.”

Paddy and Robert attempted to capture the overall feel of each game, the lateral incidents in the grounds and the pubs in addition to shooting the action from a perspective which standard TV coverage rarely attempts. In this respect The Road To America has something in common with the official World Cup films down the decades but doesn’t fall into the trap of having a ridiculous voice-over or post-dubbing every kick of the ball to sound like cannonfire.

“We watched an awful lot of football videos before we decided the way we wanted this to look,” explains Robert, “and I have to say that most of them were dire. Some of the club histories worked but with the exception of the 1970 and 1982 World Cups and The Boys From Brazil the standard was very disappointing.

“One thing that really struck me,” continues Paddy, “was how much TV coverage – with all the statistical analysis and boring minutiae of a game . . . how many corners, offsides etc. – has become the yardstick. We wanted to see if we could offer another way for people to remember a match so we filmed all the goals ourselves and when we did use what was shown on TV we filmed it from a screen so that it has a different quality. We wanted to try and avoid the key moments as people had already seen them and thereby emphasise the emotional aspect of the matches.”

But given that this film has the backing of the FAI, Jack Charlton and the players and will be the only video release of the Irish team prior to the World Cup itself, isn’t there the possibility that fans will be disappointed precisely because it doesn’t feature all the goals and incidents as they originally saw them broadcast?

“Well, there’s always that possibility,” admits Paddy, “but, and this might sound arrogant, it’s because we felt that too much memory relies on specific coverage that we wanted to use all the other information that surrounds a match. I mean, when you’re at a game you see things completely differently than if you’re sitting at home . . . and sometimes you don’t see them at all!” (laughs).

The actual mechanics of making The Road To America didn’t flow gently from the outset and it was very much a case of Robert and Paddy bringing people along with them as the games progressed. Even after the ESB came in as sponsor the costs were kept to a minimum, with goodwill and favours being cashed in on a regular basis.

“Effectively we were in Albania in May without a budget,” says Paddy. “We’d been in Copenhagen and Seville already so when Albania scored in the 7th minute it was all looking a bit dodgy, to use Jack Charlton’s words. It was the same when Denmark scored in Lansdowne. Every time it looked bad for the team it looked twice as bad for us!”

“The thing about this is that it was pretty much a speculative project,” Robert adds. “We were young and didn’t have a track record of delivering anything of feature length before. And, of course, there was always the big thing hanging over our heads of ‘Will we qualify?’

“That led to an interesting tension as the group wore on. I remember at the outset Paddy said, ‘God, wouldn’t it make for a great story if this went right down to the wire in Belfast?’ which is bloody typical of a director! As the producer I just wanted us to get through as soon as possible so I knew that we’d get to finish the thing but it’s ended up with a classic Hollywood structure now, the big dip before the happy ending.”

Throughout the video there are moments which perfectly encapsulate the passions and pitfalls of playing and following God’s Game. The glazed satisfaction and relief of the fans after the 0-0 draw in Seville; the supporters from the country’s most prominent palindrome Navan hanging their flag upside down behind the prime camera spot in Tirana (Watch out for Liam Mackey’s natty blue t-shirt in the same sequence!); John Aldrige conducting on-pitch interviews in fluent Spanish; Roy Keane dancing around after the final whistle in Windsor yelling “Fuckin’ hell! Fuckin’ hell!” to no-one in particular and a magical slo-mo sequence from the Danish game at Lansdowne when the camera stays on Paul McGrath as Niall Quinn equalises, captures the fans rising behind him and follows him back down the touchline where you can see a handicapped member of Jack’s Army bouncing his wheelchair off the ground in elation. Apart from eavesdropping on radio interviews though, there are no direct one-on-ones with the players.

“Well they wouldn’t let us into the dressing room,” laughs Robert, “but in retrospect it’s probably better that way. Despite the fact that you want to make as good a film as possible you have to hold back a bit and think, ‘Hang on, these players are getting ready for a vital game and the last thing they need is a camera in there upsetting their preparations’. Anyway, I’m never really convinced by those ‘fly on the wall’ items.

“About the only one I’ve ever felt worked to any extent was the Manchester United one Captain’s Log, and that was because it was Steve Bruce who was doing most of the filming so his team-mates felt at ease. I don’t believe you get any intimacy if you’re an outsider. You tend to end up with footballspeak, the kind of verbal shorthand players come out with because that’s the language they’ve learned to deliver in 30-second soundbytes and they feel is expected of them.”

Ah well, there goes the opportunity to have witnessed a diarrhoetic Steve Staunton squatting over a hole in the dressing-room floor before taking the field in Tirana, a location which provided a logistical nightmare for Treasure.

“I’d have to say that my finest hour as a producer was getting us into that game,” says Modest Bob with a grin. “As you probably recall, a Dutch company bought the rights to that game and RTE couldn’t do a deal with them but we went out anyway without knowing whether or not we were going to be allowed bring our cameras into the stadium. A BBC crew had been told to fuck off home two days before the match but I went for a few drinks with one of the Dutch producers, assured him that what we were doing wouldn’t conflict with whatever deals they’d arranged and that was that, job oxo!”

So, Albania, Lithuania and Latvia (listen out for a bizarre tune here, which sounds for all the world like a Latvian Country’n’Western band performing ‘Plastic Jesus’ in their native tongue!) proved to be a doddle eventually . . . but what about our brethren in Norn Iron?

“That was the only time in my life I sang ‘God Save The Queen’ with complete conviction,” recalls Paddy. “Still I was impressed by how focused the crowd was. Okay, the sectarian songs might have upset some people and Billy Bingham stirred them up, there was no question about that at all, but the people who complained must never have been near an important match in their lives. It was complete knee-jerk . . . I mean, Austin Deasy’s statement in the Dail – what a load of crap! Mind you, I was a very happy man when we got back to Dublin airport and just went on the piss for the night!”

So we’re there and The Road To America takes pride of place in the tidal wave of merchandise which will engulf us between now and next June. But now that we can snigger at England, France (mal de chance, mes amis!), Wales, Scotland, Norn Iron and the rest stuck in their safe European homes next summer, let’s play the ‘what if?’ game and ask Paddy exactly what they would have done should the doomsday scenario have unfolded and the Boys In Green weren’t heading across the wide Atlantic sea?

“Well,” he says, a shiver running down his spine at the memory of those pre-McLoughlin moments in Belfast, “I think we would have finished the film anyway but given it a different twist. It may well have turned out to be the first noir football video!

“I think the quote from Jack Charlton that opens and closes the film sums it up,” adds Robert. “He’s got a cross between a grin and a smirk on his face when he says, ‘We’re going to America – isn’t it nice to be able to say that!’ and I couldn’t agree more.”

Nice? Nice? I’m with our boy Roy on this one!

The Road To America – One Team – One Nation – One Dream is now available on Woods-Hayden Video, distributed by Pickwick at a retail price of £14.99.