Is this the most authen­tic foot­ball film ever made?

Cast your mind back to the sum­mer of ​’96. Brit­pop was in full swing, New Labour was on the rise and foot­ball was becom­ing very rock ​’n’ roll. The Pre­mier League and the grow­ing appeal of for­eign com­pe­ti­tions was breath­ing new air into the sport at just the right time. That sum­mer, Eng­land host­ed the Euro­pean Cham­pi­onship, invit­ing many of the continent’s great­est play­ers into its var­i­ous stadiums.

Cin­e­ma has a habit of try­ing to cash in on the tri­umph of inter­na­tion­al foot­ball tour­na­ments with often embar­rass­ing results. The turgid Dan­ny Dyer vehi­cle The Oth­er Side revolved around Euro 2004, while the equal­ly baf­fling Goal III: Tak­ing on the World coin­cid­ed with the 2006 World Cup. Even Dis­ney cham­pi­oned the Unit­ed States’ vic­to­ry at the 1999 Women’s World Cup with Air­bud: World Pup.

These films are soft-cen­tred romps designed to cel­e­brate the beau­ti­ful game on a pure­ly super­fi­cial lev­el. By con­trast Maria Giese’s When Sat­ur­day Comes, released a few months before Euro 96 kicked off, is a bleak, some­times strange film that goes com­plete­ly against con­ven­tion. It fol­lows the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of Jim­my Muir, played by Sean Bean, a tal­ent­ed but unmo­ti­vat­ed non-league foot­baller. He spends his days work­ing in a Sheffield brew­ery and spends his evenings either drink­ing or sleep­ing around.

He’s the cliched Eng­lish foot­baller of the era: tal­ent­ed but not deter­mined enough to realise his poten­tial and far more con­cerned with nightlife than any form of fit­ness. On top of this he also has a gam­bling addict father and a hap­less broth­er, who apart from wear­ing some rather ques­tion­able out­fits, is obsessed with his sib­ling and blind to his des­per­ate surroundings.

After catch­ing the eye of local scout, Ken Jack­son (Pete Postleth­waite), Muir is offered a tri­al at his beloved Sheffield Unit­ed, which doesn’t go accord­ing to plan. What unfolds is the sort of bleak tur­moil that wouldn’t be out of place in a Lars von Tri­er film.

When Sat­ur­day Comes isn’t entire­ly suc­cess­ful and although it con­tains a few unex­pect­ed shocks and twists, the more melo­dra­mat­ic ele­ments fail to ring true. That being said, it should be applaud­ed for not pre­sent­ing the sport as an easy-to-access world where every­thing is laid on a plate for its protagonist.

In 2016 the sto­ry of an non-pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller in his late twen­ties sud­den­ly being giv­en a chance in the first team of a major Eng­lish foot­ball club seems incon­ceiv­able. Today’s foot­ballers are nur­tured from a ten­der age, usu­al­ly nur­tured through the acad­e­my sys­tem before sign­ing a senior con­tract in their late teens. Jim­my Muir’s sto­ry seems like pure cin­e­mat­ic fan­ta­sy. But is it real­ly so ridicu­lous? Not if your name is Jamie Vardy.

In 2011 the Leices­ter City strik­er was still play­ing for Hal­i­fax Town in the Nation­al Pre­mier League, Pre­mier Divi­sion, the sev­enth tier of Eng­lish foot­ball. Six years lat­er he has just scored 24 goals in only his sec­ond sea­son in the top-flight and broke a record for scor­ing in 11 con­sec­u­tive games. His goals helped the Fox­es over­come ⁵⁰⁰⁰⁄₁ odds and win the Pre­mier League for the first time in the club’s his­to­ry. The 29-year-old’s efforts have also earned him a place in the Eng­land squad this sum­mer, where he may expe­ri­ence more glo­ry at Euro 2016.

A Jamie Vardy biopic is already in the works and although his sto­ry is far greater than any­thing that When Sat­ur­day Comes has to offer, the pro­duc­ers could take a lot from its struc­ture and sto­ry­telling. Foot­ball films are often guilty of try­ing to cap­ture to beau­ty of the game and the glo­ry of vic­to­ry. When Sat­ur­day Comes does that too, but it’s far more invest­ed in the sport’s work­ing class roots than the sim­ple desire to lit sil­ver­ware and dri­ve flash sports cars.

Muir isn’t the best foot­baller you’ve ever seen. He doesn’t do amaz­ing tricks or score impos­si­ble goals. He could eas­i­ly be a fam­i­ly mem­ber or a friend – just a reg­u­lar bloke who was nev­er giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to suc­ceed. Con­sid­er­ing how ubiq­ui­tous the glam­orous side of the mod­ern game has become, it’s a refresh­ing reminder of football’s hum­ble origins.