A fairly simple TV drama about the Munich air disaster of 1958. The story follows Bobby Charlton as a young footballer training with the Man U team and given a chance at playing for the first team. The series gets the point across in countless ways that this was a simpler time for football and for footballers, they were well known and liked but riches and glamour were a long way off still. One thing I noticed fairly early on was this is a bit of an ugly looking picture, the picture has an annoying habit of chopping the top of the heads off the actors, it also has this warm muddy brown and rather soft look to it, the 1950s though is quite well produced in the props, the furniture and wallpaper. The early bits is mostly training scenes which appears to have been filmed in a local park, this looks like it's got a really tiny budget, they really struggle to sell the idea they are really in Yugoslavia or Germany because it's all just indoor shots, the CGI plane is especially poor. The film also really missed an opportunity to introduce us properly to all of the players and their individual characteristics and traits. Equally after the disaster there's no real focus on how their wives and parents are affected by it, another really obvious missed opportunity to show real grief. We don't even see any football, not one match, again I think it probably goes back to the budget. Where the drama does work though is in the final 30 minutes and the effort to really rebuild the squad. David Tennant is really good in those scenes.
