As if there wasn’t already enough sport on TV at the moment, what with the Euros reaching the start of the last round of group games tonight, the grass court tennis season being well underway and the build up to the Olympics, I’ve got a football documentary for you today.
99 is Amazon Prime’s documentary about the 10 days that saw Manchester United win the treble in the summer of 1999, which I refuse to believe can be 25 years ago, because I remember it, and how did I get this old?! Anyway this takes you through the process that got them to that remarkable treble as well as those key days, with interviews with all the key figures involved as well as loads of archive from the time.
Looking back at this distance, it’s clear that no matter whether you support Man U or not (and I’m definitely in the not camp) this was a remarkable achievement – and they did it with a large number of players that had come through the club’s academy set-up. Clubs have done the same thing since – but they’ve done it after large injections of money from various sources and without the home-grown talent.
If you’ve seen the Beckham documentary series, this (unsurprisingly) has a lot of the same talking heads (and some of the same producers too) but obviously the focus is very different. But if you enjoy one, you’ll probably enjoy the other, from sporting point of view anyway.
Have a great Sunday!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
Oh glorious day 😀. “Manchester United have reached the Promised Land!”