ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

THE SCOTS have such a passion for football that it’s hard to imagine a country where the game isn’t considered a matter of life and death. You only have to travel back to America in the 1960s to discover a country where it was a matter of complete indifference.

One man tried to change all that, and ‘Once In A Lifetime’ is an entertaining documentary on media tycoon Steve Ross and his dream of turning the New York Cosmos into a world class soccer team.

Told through the conflicting, ‘Rashomon’-style testimony of surviving eyewitnesses and some great archive footage, this is a breezy salute to Ross’s swashbuckling manner.

The head of Warner Communications, Ross clearly possessed more money than sense. He believed that he could make soccer the number one game in America. In 1974, he put the New York Cosmos on the map by paying a small fortune for the services of Brazilian superstar Pele.

He kept his cheque book open to purchase the likes of Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer. The Cosmos became the toast of New York, attracting record-breaking crowds and celebrity fans like Henry Kissinger and Mick Jagger.

Soccer briefly caught the attention of the American nation, but the dream was to be short-lived. Narrated by Matt Dillon, ‘Once In A Lifetime’ offers a jaunty stroll down memory lane painting a vivid picture of New York in the 1970s and backing it with a great soundtrack of period music.

Pele’s refusal to be interviewed must have come as a blow to the filmmakers, but the end result is still a great World Cup warm-up even if you are not too bothered about the state of Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal.

Selected nationwide release
Directors: Paul Crowder, John Dower
Stars: Franz Beckenbauer, Johann Cruyff, Giorgio Chinaglia, Henry Kissinger
Screenwriter: Mark Monroe
Narrator: Matt Dillon
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 92 mins
Country: USA/UK
Year: 2006

© Allan Hunter, 2006