Exclusive interview with the man behind film reciting Ibrox club's greatest ever triumph - Rangers72

It's been produced by Leeds-based film group The City Talking who made the hugely popular Leeds United series Take Us Home.

We caught up with founder Lee Hicken to give us an insight into the film.

Can you give us some background about yourself and The City Talking?

Our first foray into the sports film market was the Leeds United film and the story of Howard Wilkinson taking the team from the Second Division to basically two years later being champions of Division One the year before it became the Premier League. We did some work with Leeds Rhinos, they had their greatest team in their history. They won the treble in 2015 so we did the story of that and then for two years we were filming with the current Leeds United team. So when Bielsa was appointed as the head coach, we started filming our fly-on-the-wall series which is an Amazon Prime series as well. That was two years long so that was more episodic, fly-on-the-wall, filming things as they happen. Take Us Home was the most recent football project for us and since last year it’s been this, Rangers72. That’s been our main football project for the last 12 months. We’ve done a lot of sports stuff but they’re the big headline projects that everybody has heard of or watched.

What attracted you to make a film about Rangers?

There were a couple of things really. We were not done with football but we had done a lot with football and we were in Berlin filming a show over there with Hertha Berlin as well because we knew we’d not completed Leeds but we’d done the greatest Rhinos team, we’d done the Bielsa era with Leeds United and to do another football story it has to be something that is really special and is something that gets the juices flowing. Anyway, this project was brought to us by a Rangers fanatic. We knew the headlines already, I lived in Barcelona for three years as well so you sort of hear football folklore around stuff like this and I knew it was something that Rangers fans sang a lot about. But as far as the sort of details of the story, the Rangers fanatic that we know – a guy called Cameron just said to us, ‘Then this happened, then this happened, then this happened,’ and we were just like, jaw on the floor and went, ‘This is all in the same cup run?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, I know you said you wanted to do something other than football next but surely this is interesting?’

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You take about a week to go away and think about it, we did our own research and were like, ‘Yeah, we have to do this story.’ Not just because we like the idea of doing something with Rangers anyway, that was interesting just because of the sheer size of the club and Glasgow’s a really cool city that interested us, it was like this is the story to do after that. It has everything that you would want in a story. Whether it’s football or Hollywood, whatever, this story had all the right elements. Then it was a case of if we were going to do it, how were we going to do it and that’s when we made all the moves we needed to make. This was one that was brought to us in like, ‘You guys need to give this The City Talking treatment kind of thing,’ and the more we looked into it the more we thought this suits us down to the ground this story.

The fact it ties in with the 50th anniversary and 150th anniversary of the club is a nice touch.

Yeah, and that was pure luck really. In terms of when we wanted to do it, it was like, ‘Oh and by the way, it’s the 150 and it’s the 50th anniversary.’ We were almost looking as if these were signs that we must do it and we must do it now kind of thing. The story itself was the thing that got us in and the more the stars aligned it was like we have to do it now, we can’t wait. Even if we waited a year, we lose the 150 and the 50 so we had to just do it.

Does this film tell the background stories of each game?

Yeah, and also the setup really like what was Glasgow like then? Where were Rangers as a club at that point in time? Were they at a real high point or a real low point? Were they rebuilding? All those types of things we explored as well and why does this story matter to the city and to Rangers supporters. There’s almost too much, you could do a film just on each tie by itself, there’s that much going on. You could do a film just on the final and all that went on there. For us, it was like, ‘What are the most interesting elements? What can we get our hands on, footage wise and people to be interviewed and what have you,’ so we sort of take each stage of the cup run and try to explore a bit within that. You can’t do everything, of course, but I feel like the film gives a different flavour to each round so hopefully, we’ve pulled that off when people watch it.

You’ve managed to speak to some of the legends who took part in the run.

Don’t get me wrong, tracking people down, getting people lined up for filming, all this kind of stuff – it’s like herding cats. You’ve probably got 20 people you're trying to pin down at the same time, getting them to refresh their memories a little bit as well about what went on. I can barely remember what happened at the start of the pandemic versus these guys looking back 50 years. We’ve got a stellar cast, you’ve got the players who were instrumental, John Greig, Willie Johnston, Colin Stein, all of those guys are in it and then you’ve got the kind of unexpected stories of that cup run so Derek Parlane who’ll come in at a certain point and drive at something new in the story. Of the people that were available, all the top boys are in there and they’re all in really good form as well.

Do you get a true sense of just how important Willie Waddell was to the team and the club back then?

Yeah, that’s something that right at the start of the project, it’s always a sort of open question really of like, ‘How would we handle Willie Waddell in this?’ We obviously know we can’t get anything new from him, it was more like, ‘How can we tell his story?’ It’s so critical to the film and the careers of these players and obviously everything that happened around Ibrox with the stadium. He is critical to this overall story so what we did was a bit of, ‘What can we find out about what he said?’ Again another aligning of the stars, we got hold of his personal handwritten notes of tactics and booking hotels at away games and this sort of thing. So, we feel like as much as we could without him being here, he is in the film. His notes are in the film, his quotes are in the film, everybody talks about him so although he’s not here he’s still a really important character in the film for sure.

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The premiere takes place on Tuesday night in Glasgow, how much are you looking forward to it?

Yeah definitely. The premiere is always a strange feeling from our point of view because you have relief that the film is done and it represents months of work and so many days of filming but then you get the other bit when you go, ‘People are going to see it now, we hope it’s good.’ You see something so many times, it’s the same with Take Us Home where during the project you’re going, ‘This is amazing, this is amazing, this is amazing,’ and then at the end, you go, ‘Is it? We’ve seen this so many times now, is this any good?’ So I guess we’ll know tonight but it should be a good night anyway, loads of the players are coming along and people from the club, press and everybody who’s made the film so, at the very least, it should be a real lovely moment to celebrate these guys. I know they’ve had various other things going on but this isn’t usual to have a movie made about one of your big moments so I’m hoping the players really enjoy it as well. That’s the sign of it being a good night for us if they’re all crying and happy at the end.

How pleased were you to get James Cosmo on board to narrate the film?

He was off filming another show in Europe at the time so he wasn’t even in the UK. Anyway, Giuseppe, the director, had an idea of what he wanted for the opening of the film, which people have seen a little bit in the trailer and we got in touch with him and said, ‘Look, we think you’re perfect for this,’ it needs somebody of his gravity and power and coolness to pull it off. We sort of put pressure on ourselves as we’ve got a good track record. Every series that we’ve filmed has got someone like Vinnie Jones in the first one, Matthew Lewis did the Rhinos one and Russell Crowe did the last one so we had to get somebody, name in lights type thing. He was an absolute gentleman. He loved the idea of what it was to do with, the filming was dead easy. You see it in the trailer, he was super into it so that was one of those where you put a fishing line out there and hope that it comes off and it did. You want that sort of star power as well in the film that when the trailer hits, people go, ‘Oh, this is not just a kind of DIY project,’ it’s like this is serious and we were buzzing to get him on board.

You can obtain a copy of Rangers72 by clicking HERE.