THE author David Peace hails from West Yorkshire, yet his best-known novels don't suggest a liking for the place. Following the television adaptation of his Red Riding Quartet, in which anyone seen driving into Yorkshire was likely to die there, we have the film version of The Damned United, which concerns the near-fatal GBH on the career of football manager Brian Clough. In Peace's world, the adage "it's grim up north" is an understatement.

Set in 1974, the film concerns Clough's ill-fated attempt to manage Leeds United, the most successful team of the day, but whose dirty tactics clashed with the young manager's ideals. The cocky and ambitious Clough thought he could tame the beast. But his tenure lasted just 44 days.

This is not a film for soccer fans only - far from it. Primarily, it is a fascinating and very enjoyable character study of one of the most complicated, controversial and entertaining sporting managers Britain has ever had; beyond that, a touching love story of sorts, between Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor, friends and allies whose bond was almost destroyed by Clough's obsession with another man - the manager he succeeded at Leeds, Don Revie. The film opens with Revie (Colm Meaney) becoming England manager, leaving the club he has managed for 13 years.

His surprise successor is the man who's been criticising the team for months. We meet him first on the motorway to Leeds, singing along to Tom Jones's What's New Pussycat on the radio. This is Clough (Michael Sheen) the cheeky showman, who famously comments: "I certainly wouldn't say I'm the best manager in the business. But I'm in the top one."

Clough drives past the Leeds stadium and straight to the local radio station, where he again berates the "dirty buggers" he's about to take over.

But he underestimates the loyalty felt towards Revie. And the players are about to put the boot in.

Meanwhile, the film shifts back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Clough and Taylor (Timothy Spall) transform Derby County from second division no-hopers to first division champions.

These are happy times, during which the two men forge a brilliant partnership: Clough the motivator; Taylor, as he himself puts it, "the goods in the back".

But ever since Leeds strode into town and cheated Derby out of their FA Cup tie, Revie has cast a dark shadow over Clough. The younger man's obsessive desire for revenge, allied to rampant ambition, strains the relationship with Taylor. When Clough moves to Leeds, he moves alone.

Two wonderful match scenes illustrate the rivalry between the teams. In one, a nervous Clough hides in a boardroom, as sun and the cheers of fans pour through the windows; in the other, Leeds brutalise Derby in the pouring rain, after which Clough enters a dressing room that looks like a first world war battlefield. We barely see a ball being kicked, yet it's gripping.

Having portrayed Tony Blair, Kenneth Williams and David Frost, Sheen is shaping up as a national treasure, the man of a thousand iconic faces. His Clough isn't as acutely observed as those others (and I'll swear there's a touch of Frost breaking through the more grandstanding moments). But he captures perfectly Clough's bravado and charisma. Spall, Meaney and Jim Broadbent (as the long-suffering Derby chairman) chip in marvellously.

Adapted by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), the film is lighter than the book, without the paranoia of Clough's inner voice. Visually it offers an economic evocation of the period off the pitch: of power cuts and bad hair, when Brighton was considered a backwater and boys read The Wizard.

Stay away from the north, perhaps, and it really wasn't too bad.