This Sporting Life

Director Lindsay Anderson’s opening, Richard Harris, himself a formidable player in his college years, in an English rugby match, getting thumped, initiating flashbacks to his days as a miner, and his emotional involvement with his landlady Rachel Roberts, in This Sporting Life, 1963.

Frank (Richard Harris) has won a spot on the local rugby team (director Lindsay Anderson shooting at Belle Vue, Wakefield, West Yorkshire), thinking of his landlady (Rachel Roberts) and impressing the owner (Alan Badel), William Hartnell a scout who recruited him, in This Sporting Life, 1963.

In a flashback, Richard Harris is Frank, a coal miner, whom we know soon becomes a star rugby player, denied entrance to a night club, bashing his way in when the rugby team arrives, picking a fight with colleague Len (Jack Watson), Colin Blakely as Maurice, in This Sporting Life, 1963.