Script for “The dog who saved Torquay United”, by Harvey Gerring

Anyone in this script who is not Harvey has been recorded at a previous time through
interviews so therefore will not need to be present within the recording.

(First shot is an interview clip with Jane Kelly with footage from
this video overlaid with her audio.)
Jane Kelly (9:54): All I remember is that I turned to this
bloke next to me and said, “What’s happening?”, and all I can
remember to this day was that he said in a very broad Devon accent,
“Jim McNichol has been bitten by a police dog”.
Jane Kelly (15:03): Never heard of anything like it before.
(Cuts to slow b-roll footage of Torquay United and the town centre
with smooth jazz music being played over it. If possible, take this
shot in the town centre next to a sign which says Torquay on it.)
Harvey: Welcome to Torquay. Home to 50,000 people, this
English Riviera boasts its waterfront and stunning views to 3
million tourists each year. But this story is just a 9-minute drive
and 36 years away from here.
(Shot is now outside of Plainmoor next to the mosaic outside the
ground. Harvey is on the left-hand side of the shot.
Harvey: The year is 1986. Torquay United sit in the 4th tier of
English football and play at this ground behind me, Plainmoor. 1986
was the first year of automatic relegation and how that works is
that the team who finish bottom of a league, gets relegated to a
lower league for the next season, whereas the team who finishes top
of the lower league, will replace them in the league above.
Unfortunately for Torquay, they weren’t having a great season,
however.
Paul Dennis (12:00): The two previous years we were bottom of
the league.
Paul Dennis (14:50): We were never going to be challenging at
the top so we always thought it was going to be a struggle again.
Jane Kelly (7:16): We were just poor all season and we just
thought “that’s it, we’re going to get relegated”.
Jane Kelly (7:25): To be honest, we didn’t think that we would
survive.
(The shot has now moved to a different part of the stadium with a
relatively long shot. The shot will pan from Harvey speaking onto
the wall where I can edit in the league table once referenced.)
Harvey: After a pretty poor first 45 games of the season,
Torquay United were sat 1 place above relegation, in 23rd place. If
they were to be relegated, they would be sent to the conference
league.
 Paul Dennis (12:37): The conference was seen as like the death
of the club because all the clubs were part time.
Harvey: Nonetheless, they still had just one game left with
Burnley, Torquay and Lincoln City all separated by just 2 points
overall in the league. You get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a
draw and 0 points for a loss.
(The camera slowly pans back to Harvey from here as the league table
has now been shown.
Harvey: Torquay had to face already safe Crewe Alexandre on
the final day who were playing under no pressure at all.
Paul Dennis (12:26): Personally, I was quite apprehensive and
a bag of nerves before kick-off.
Paul Dennis (19:32): Trouble with me is that I’m much more of
a pessimistic person really. I always go to games thinking we will
lose, then if we do win my logic is that you’re even happier than if
you expected to win.
(The shot has now moved around to the other side of the stadium
where you can film through the fence and see the pitch. As we do not
have access to the stadium, we will be outside still.)
Harvey: Final day. Lincoln City faced Swansea, Burnley faced
Leyton Orient and Torquay United faced Crewe Alexandre. It was
coming down to the wire.
Paul Dennis (13:26): When anybody kicked the ball around. It
was such a dry end to the season anyway.
Paul Dennis (13:42): Every time a ball was kicked, a big cloud
of dust went up.
Jane Kelly (11:34): Everyone was up for it, come on we can do
this. If they don’t perform now, they’re never going to perform. And
everybody was really up for it, and then the first goal goes in.
Paul Dennis (19:02): The way it was going I thought, here we
go.
Jane Kelly (11:51): Oh god, here we go again.
Harvey: A short free-kick routine saw Torquay go 1-0 down
already by a goal from Bodak, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Jane Kelly (11:54): And then the second one goes in. That’s
it. I remember my dad saying that’s it we’re down.
Harvey: A breakaway goal from future England international,
David Platt, saw Torquay go 2-0 down just before half-time.
Paul Dennis (18:43): I thought Crewe were lucky to be 2-0 up
in the sense that they weren’t anything special.
 Jane Kelly (9:34): Everybody just came to the front, because
of course, everybody wanted to go on the pitch. We thought we were
going to lose, so they all came to the front.
Paul Dennis (19:08): I thought, when they nicked the first
goal, whatever. And when the second one went in, I thought “come on,
don’t stick the knife in that bad.”
Paul Dennis (19:16): You think at half time, how are we going
to come back from this?
(We can now move to a different scene location on another side of
the ground for variation.)
Harvey: Nonetheless, Torquay still had another 45 minutes to
play and with Burnley winning and Lincoln City losing, all they
needed was a point to stay up. The only issue was, they were 2-0
down and were looking downtrodden. Despite that though, they won a
freekick outside the box and up stepped Jim McNichol.
Paul Dennis (23:29): I just remember him lining up a freekick.
Paul Dennis (23:52): When he just took it, it just walloped.
Jane Kelly (13:47): I remember going absolutely mental, that
we scored, and we only needed one more.
Paul Dennis (25:37): Yeah that’s right, smash it in Jim.
Jane Kelly (13:47) The whole ground erupted and you could just
feel a change in the atmosphere. That there was only one more goal,
that’s what we need, one more goal.
Paul Dennis (23:54): Because it was just after the start of
the second half, immediately that raised everybody and gave us fresh
hope.
Harvey: Torquay United were starting to look confident and
that goal itself sparked belief amongst all 3655 of the fans inside
Plainmoor on that dry May afternoon. However, what happened next, no
one expected at all.
Jane Kelly (9:35): I didn’t see it but suddenly there was a
stop in play, and it seemed to go on forever and ever.
Paul Dennis (22:46): We didn’t have a clue what had happened.
We just saw a player go down, stretcher and a big gathering of
players. On our side, we didn’t have a clue what was happening.
Jane Kelly (9:54): I turned to this bloke next to me and said
“what’s happening?”, and all I can remember to this day was that he
said in a very broad Devon accent “Jim McNichol has been bitten by a
police dog”. And I went “what?”.
Jane Kelly (14:58): What’s going on? Really?
Harvey: As a ball was going out of play, Torquay defender, Jim
McNichol was chasing it and startled a police dog on the sidelines,
named Bryn, who instinctively turned around and bit Jim McNichol
across the thigh.
Paul Dennis (26:22): It was a case of thinking, what on earth
is going on? Kind of thing.
Jane Kelly (10:59): Somebody said, oh it’s meant to be.
Harvey: Jim McNichol was unable to be substituted off the
pitch as they had already used their one substitution earlier in the
match. He was down for a total of 4 minutes, which was then added
onto the end of the game for injury time.
Jane Kelly (14:21): We heard the results through the radio,
what was going on with Lincoln, we knew they were losing.
Jane Kelly (15:30): We still needed one goal.
Paul Dennis (26:22): We were kind of building momentum, hit
the crossbar and having chances.
Paul Dennis (27:43): You think… come on… come on! Just trying
to will that ball into Crewe’s net.
Jane Kelly (15:53): Shouting to the players, you need one more
to stay up.
Harvey: Torquay were in the desperation, 4 minutes to save the
club from relegation and possibly extinction. They were given a
chance though.
Paul Dennis (28:21): One of their players dribbling across his
penalty area, he loses it and obviously then Dobson gets onto it and
smacks it in.
Jane Kelly (16:18): I just remember the place erupting.
Paul Dennis (29:18): Just complete madness ensued.
Jane Kelly (16:34): We just all went mental. People trying to
get onto the pitch and all that sort of thing. It was fantastic, we
were going to stay up.
Paul Dennis (30:29): And you just turned around and started
hugging people you never knew.
Jane Kelly (17:26): It was such a relief; you’d think they’d
won the league rather than just scraped to stay in it.
Harvey: The full-time whistle blew, and it was official.
Torquay had done it, they had, against all belief, saved themselves
from relegation. A pitch invasion ensued, and relief filled the air.
Torquay United had done the unthinkable, thanks to a police dog
named Bryn.
(Cut to the footage of the news report from the day after, speaking
about this incident. (Link). Have the 1987 BBC News intro too
(Link))
 News reporter (3:20): Well, the hero of the match at Plainmoor
was almost the villain. He’s just four years old, weighs 90 pounds
and as one player said today, “when he tackles you, you stay
tackled”.
News reporter 2 (3:48): Today, the biter and the bit had a
chance to meet on somewhat friendlier terms in Torquay.
John Harris (4:10): It was instinct with the dog. The dog
thought straight away that we were being attacked from behind, and
he bit his leg. I got him off as soon as I could.
John Harris (4:39): It wasn’t the dog’s fault that he reacted
the way he did.
News reporter 2 (5:46): To show that all was well. Torquay
Chairman, Luke Pope, had a couple of presents for Bryn. The bone is
an attempt to ween the animal off footballer’s legs, and a scarf is
to show him which side he should be on.
(This clip here is from the ITV broadcast instead, with Jim McNichol
speaking to an interviewer) (Link)
Jim McNichol (1:59): If it wasn’t for extra time for being
down injured, we might not have scored. It’s a wee story I suppose
isn’t it.
(Outro clips here with some more smooth jazz showing different parts
of this story, with different clips. Most of these will be b-roll
clips from the match. Perhaps could end it on this video (link) with
them chanting “yellow army” at 1:23:02).