‘I never wanted to be an ordinary footballer. I wanted to be somebody, leave a mark…’
Untold is a series of sports documentary films distributed on Netflix, which has recently branched out into English sports (only football, so far), having previously concentrated exclusively on American sports. The first three episodes of this new format focus on Leicester City talisman Jamie Vardy, Liverpool’s miraculous Champions League win of 2005, and football-turned-actor Vinnie Jones. While I enjoyed the entry about Vardy, it was hampered somewhat by the fact that Vardy himself is a fairly reluctant and ineloquent interviewee. Not so with Vincent Peter Jones…
Charting his unlikely rise from working in a factory and playing in non-league for Wealdstone to winning the FA Cup and reaching the top flight with Wimbledon, Leeds, Sheffield United and Chelsea, this latest instalment in the Untold UK series has plenty of content to draw from. Jones was a controversial figure on the pitch, he still holds the record for the most red cards in the top division of English football, but off the pitch he appears to have been fairly well liked. Interviewees here include his former managers Dave Bassett and Bobby Gould, former teammate and close friend John Fashanu and… erm… Piers Morgan, and all speak warmly of Jones (although, on reflection, this could be because they’re terrified of him).
Seeing archival footage from ’80s and ’90s football is always a treat, and many of the tackles here are delightfully barbaric, but we never really see the true character underneath the bluster here. Jones very much leans into his reputation as a hardman in his interviews, and while this is undoubtedly entertaining, it’s also a little one-dimensional. I would also have liked to have seen a little more on his astonishing success as an actor (he’s appeared in over 100 films). While his thespian era is touched upon, it feels more like an afterthought than a deep dive.
For football fans of my generation, Jones is a totemic, almost mythical figure. While this doc only intensifies the legend rather than trying to demystify it, it’s still wildly entertaining. Much like Jones himself…
