Gregory's Girl director 'never liked football'

GREGORY'S Girl writer and director Bill Forsyth has revealed how he never liked football - and he learned everything he knew about the game from filming Aberdeen FC's matches for the BBC.

Forsyth's 1981 classic film featured John Gordon Sinclair as awkward teenager Gregory Underwood, who falls for the girl who has taken his place as striker in the school's faltering football team.

Gregory is forced in to goal while Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn, helps turn around the team's fortunes.

But Forsyth, 64, has admitted for the first time how he had "no interest whatsoever" in football and learned about shooting match scenes from covering Scottish Premier Division matches for the BBC at venues such as Aberdeen's Pittodrie Stadium.

Gregory's Girl was released in 1981, when Sir Alex Ferguson was transforming his side in to a major European force.

Speaking in the first programme of a new Artworks series for BBC Two Scotland, to be broadcast next Tuesday, Glaswegian Forsyth reveals he had so little interest in football that he sometimes claimed to support Edinburgh club Hearts, just to stop conversations on the sport in their tracks.

But he gained vital experience covering games for the BBC and even made his first movies on film left over from shooting matches.

Forsyth said: "I've never had any interest in football whatsoever.

"If anyone asked me who I supported I used to say Hearts because they were somewhere else. It didn't mean anything and it closed the conversation down.

"Then when I joined the film industry I got a contract to shoot football matches for the BBC."

Artworks: When Bill Paterson Met Bill Forsyth is on BBC Two Scotland on Tuesday at 10pm.