‘A Shot at Glory’: The bizarre football movie starring Ally McCoist
Movies about football have thrown up the good, the bad, and the ugly of cinema, but when it comes to the most bizarre, teaming up Ally McCoist with Robert Duvall as part of a cast comprised of acting legends and professional journeyman takes the cake.
There was uproar in Scotland from the second A Shot at Glory was first announced, if only for the reason that McCoist’s character Jackie McQuillan was a Celtic legend. For many, this was completely unsanctionable for reasons that are entirely obvious to anyone who has even the slightest awareness of just how passionately Glasgow treats the divide between the Old Firm.
He may be a Scottish football legend who made history as the first man to ever win the European Golden Boot in consecutive seasons – a feat that’s only ever been replicated by Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Robert Lewandowski – but as the highest-ever goalscorer for Rangers, there was uproar from Parkhead and Govan alike.
Having recently retired himself following a brief stint at Kilmarnock, McCoist was at least on familiar turf as McQuillan, the ageing striker brought in by Duvall’s Gordon McLeod to sign for lowly Kilnockie. A wayward presence off the pitch, his marriage to McLeod’s daughter only complicates matters further, which is exacerbated by Michael Keaton’s American businessman Peter Cameron arriving on the scene with a plan to relocate the entire team to Dublin.
Alongside Academy Award-winning legend Duvall and Tim Burton’s Batman, esteemed veteran Brian Cox is also part of the ensemble alongside Cole Hauser, which is a decent array of heavyweight talent, which makes it even stranger that they appear in the same film as Owen Coyle, Andy Smith, Derek Ferguson, and Didier Agathe, with the experienced pros all playing themselves.
Despite the vast gap in their experience levels, Duvall called McCoist “a good natural actor”, even when the pressure was on to shoot a sex scene right in front of his wife. “He was good, even when he was doing a love scene and his real wife was right there on set,” The Godfather star remarked. “What about that? Doing a love scene with your wife watching. Oh my god, that sure was interesting.”
McCoist couldn’t leave his shooting boots at the door, though, with Cox telling the press how he kept scoring penalties he was supposed to miss. “There’s a guy called Cole Hauser, who is an American lad who has never picked up a football in his life, so he needs as much help as he can get,” he explained. “I think there were about ten takes of Ally scoring, he could not miss the penalty. The director was going nuts saying ‘What’s wrong with the man?’. I said ‘He’s a footballer, if he sees a goal he’s naturally inclined to want to score.'”
McCoist, Duvall, Keaton, Cox, making pretend love in front of your real spouse, and absolutely schooling Hauser from 12 yards, A Shot at Glory has it all. Is it any good? That’s besides the point, but it’s definitely unique.
