From "Downton Abbey" creator and "Gosford Park" writer Julian Fellowes. Based on true events, this 19th century drama follows two footballers on opposite sides of a class divide who changed the game — and England — forever. The English Game arrives on Netflix March 20.
The English Game is a British historical sports drama television miniseries developed by Julian Fellowes for Netflix about the origins of modern football in England. The six-part series was released on 20 March 2020.
In April 2018, it was announced Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes would write and executive produce his first Netflix series. Birgitte Stærmose and Tim Fywell are directing, Rory Aitken, Eleanor Moran and Ben Pugh of 42 are executive producing, and Ben Vanstone is co-executive producing.
The cast was announced in May 2019 as production began in England, mostly in the North.
The first season epilogue reads: "In 1885 the FA changed their rules to allow professional players. An amateur team never won the FA Cup again. Arthur Kinnaird became President of the FA, serving 33 years until his death in 1923. Fergus Suter and Jimmy Love are recognised as pioneers of the modern game, which now has over four billion fans across the world."
1 "Episode 1" Birgitte Stærmose Julian Fellowes, Tony Charles, Oliver Cotton & Ben Vanstone 20 March 2020
Arthur Kinnaird is captain and star player of the Old Etonians, an upper class football team. Their opponents in the 1879 FA Cup Quarter finals are Darwen FC, a working class factory team. James Walsh, the owner of Darwen FC and the associated mill decides to secretly pay two Scottish players, Fergus "Fergie" Suter and James "Jimmy" Love to join his team in a bid to secure the FA Cup (which at the time is exclusively for amateurs). At halftime the Old Etonians lead 5-1, however Darwen recover with a progressive adjustment (spreading out their formation and focusing on passing) to draw 5 all. The Old Etonians, who also happen to be FA Board members, decide that since extra time was not previously agreed to then the Quarterfinal will be replayed instead. The mill has financial issues and townsfolk pitch in to help pay for the trip. The replay is handily won by Old Etonians who focus more on shutting down Suter and Love rather than playing their own game. Darwen FC are greeted positively for their efforts by the town.
2 "Episode 2" Birgitte Stærmose Julian Fellowes & Ben Vanstone 20 March 2020
Suter meets with Walsh and persuades him to change some football strategies. Stokes, a team member, goes to Kinnaird’s bank to ask for a loan. Some Darwen mill workers talk about strike as a result of a prior 5 per cent wage cut. The Cotton Guild imposes another 10 per cent wage cut. Darwen workers walk out. The team refuses to train or play in matches while on strike. Suter fails to persuade Walsh to go against the guild. Workers go to the guild to demand a 5 per cent wage cut and fewer hours to help fight the oversupply that has caused the price of goods to fall. The guild refuses. Workers riot. Kinnaird is saved from the riot by Stokes. Against Kinnaird’s wishes, Stokes goes in his place to warn Colonel Jackson (the guild leader) that the mob is coming for him. Police show up and arrest Stokes and kill his dog. Stokes is put on trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Kinnaird testifies on behalf of Stokes and saves him from prison and gives him his loan. Walsh agrees to the 5 per cent wage cut and to work five days a week if the team plays their upcoming match. While waiting on the team at the match, Suter is approached by the manager of Blackburn FC and is offered £100 upfront and a £6 weekly wage increase. Suter turns him down as the team arrive to play.
3 "Episode 3" Birgitte Stærmose Julian Fellowes & Gabbie Asher 20 March 2020
Suter goes home to Glasgow to visit his poor family and drunken, abusive father who tries to shame Suter for being paid to play. Kinnaird and his wife continue to mourn the loss of her pregnancy six months earlier. Once back in Lancashire, Suter meets with Cartwright, the Blackburn FC manager and accepts his offer but needs a few days to make it right with Jimmy, Walsh and the Darwen team. After practice with the Etonians, teammates talk about the “epidemic” of working-class teams joining the Football Association. While the gentleman scoff at the conditions of the working poor, Kinnaird comes to their defence. The Darwen team are out celebrating Jimmy’s stag party. Mr. Walsh tells Suter that he’s proud of his decision to bring Suter on to the team. Suter thanks him but doesn’t mention the deal with Blackburn. Clearly drunk, Suter gets in a fight with another Blackburn player recently hired from Partick when he compares Suter to his drunken father. The following day, at the match between Darwen and St Luke’s, Suter arrives late and plays terribly. Darwen lose 3-0 and are out of the FA Cup. Suter storms off the pitch. At home, Suter tells Doris about the deal with Blackburn and says that he will tell Jimmy after the wedding. Jimmy practises his vows and Doris overhears. At the wedding, Jimmy tells all that he finally feels like he has a home in Darwen. As Suter begins his best man’s speech, he is interrupted by a teammate who reads a Blackburn ad about Suter joining the team, shocking everyone.
4 "Episode 4" Tim Fywell Julian Fellowes & Sam Hoare 20 March 2020
At the Darwen mill, Walsh shames Suter for his choice to leave. Suter tries to persuade Jimmy to come with him. Jimmy refuses, saying that Darwen is his team and his family now. Cartwright shows Suter the new facilities and stands. He shows off new teammates, including Jack Hunter from Sheffield, and tells Suter he is assembling a team of the best players north of Eton. Cartwright asks Walsh for his discretion regarding Suter’s professionalism and offers him £100 for Blackburn to play Darwen the next week in an exhibition match. After being seen talking familiarly with Mr Cartwright (with whom she previously had a child), Martha is fired from her job at the Cotton Master’s club. Mr Cartwright offers her money to help but Martha refuses, saying she needs to find her own way. At the Blackburn v Druids match, Suter struggles to mesh with his new teammates. Hunter is hailed the hero. Suter talks with Jimmy, who calls him a Judas. Suter tells Jimmy that he is trying to get his family away from his father. Suter again asks Jimmy to join Blackburn. Later, Jimmy stands up for Suter against the Darwen team and tells them he is joining Blackburn. On the way to the match between the Old Etonians and Preston, the Etonians discuss how football is becoming a booming business and is no longer just a game. The FA President complains that if it continues, only the richest teams will win and is planning to watch the exhibition match between Darwen and Blackburn to find evidence to expel them from the FA cup. The match between Darwen and Blackburn is rough and Jimmy’s leg is badly broken by a tackle and the blood loss threatens both his life and his leg.
5 "Episode 5" Tim Fywell Julian Fellowes & Geoff Bussetil 20 March 2020
Jimmy is told he’ll never play football again. Cartwright tells the Blackburn team that a portion of the match proceeds will go to help Jimmy’s recovery. Cartwright asks Suter how Martha and her daughter are doing after her job loss. After Cartwright tells his wife about the affair, she goes to Martha’s house and offers to care for her daughter, Jenie. Martha refuses. Martha tells Suter about Cartwright and Jenie. Martha goes back to talk with Mrs Cartwright and apologises for the affair with her husband. Suter and Martha kiss. Tommy, the player who hurt Jimmy, visits and to apologise. Suter arrives and tells Jimmy the team will support him financially and they are struggling to replace him. Later, Suter pushes Jimmy in a cart to the pub to cheer him up. Darwen teammates start to reconcile with Suter. Stokes talks about his business success making football kits. Doris asks after a job for Jimmy. Kinnaird has a falling out with his friend over the true reason behind missing the quarter-final match. After some tense discussions with his father about his football career, Kinnaird uses his football contacts to help save a vital investment. Kinnaird debates the merits of paying players with the Etonians. The Lancashire teams band together to beat the elite teams. Mr. Walsh persuades Tommy to join Blackburn to replace Jimmy. Cartwright offers Suter the captainship (and a bonus) if they make it to the final. Mrs Cartwright offers Martha a job at Brockshall and says she can bring Jenie. Two days later the FA Board meets without Kinnaird and discuss expelling Darwen and Blackburn from the cup.
6 "Episode 6" Tim Fywell Julian Fellowes & Ben Vanstone 20 March 2020
The FA Board votes to expel Blackburn. Kinnaird is furious. Later Kinnaird has it out with his friends about their betrayal.
Walsh, now the head of the Lancashire FA holds a meeting to figure out how to fight the ban. Suter offers to talk to Kinnaird. Walsh gives Suter a new suit so that he will fit in with the elite. Suter discusses the merits of professional players. Suter argues that the elites banning of professionals is not fair because they are not working all day to put food on the table. They both agree they play for the love of the game. At the Board meeting. Suter argues in favour of letting Blackburn play. The Board stands by their decision to ban Blackburn from the cup. Walsh tells him the Lancashire FA and most other county FAs will withdraw from the FA cup and form a new association. Kinnaird would be the new president. Kinnaird argues that the working-class teams will overwhelm the elite teams unless they include the working class. Kinnaird persuades the Board to let Blackburn play. At the match, the 1883 FA Club Final, the Etonians are playing well but in a very physical way. The score is 0-0 at half-time. One of the Etonian players is injured but they agree to keep playing anyway. Suter scores with a header from Tommy’s pass. In the last moments of the match, Kinnaird scores on a breakaway. The teams agree to extra time. Suter sits out a player to make the match fair and gives the players a rousing pep talk. Suter scores the winning goal. Suter lifts the cup to overwhelming cheers. In 1885, the FA officially allows professional players and an amateur team never wins the cup again. Kinnaird becomes the FA President and serves for 33 years until his death in 1923.
The English Game's few charms lie in the background, not centre stage
This article is more than 3 months old
Jonathan Wilson
The latest series from Julian Fellowes starts badly and barely improves but it is a reminder football has never stood still
@jonawils
Sat 4 Apr 2020 20.00 BST
You can see how The English Game must have sounded in conception. It’s the birth of football. It’s toffs against proles, the rivalry of one of the great aristocrats of the early game, Lord Arthur Kinnaird, and the Glaswegian stonemason who was the first great professional, Fergus Suter. It’s about an idea going out into the world and being profoundly changed when it is taken up by the masses.
But Netflix’s new series comes nowhere near what it might have been, and is little more than a mishmash of Downton Abbey stereotypes and trouble-at-mill cliches. The toffs are habitually awful, the banks are always foreclosing, and the proles, salt-of-the-earth brawlers and charmers that they are, can’t help themselves but get everybody unhelpfully pregnant.
And the football? From the moment a minute in when Craig Parkinson, as the self-made mill-owner Walsh, tells Suter: “I’ve seen ’ow you play in Scotland. Your passing game is the future of football,” you know that subtlety, or characters who actually speak like real humans, isn’t what this is about. Still, for those who last saw Parkinson as the AC-12 officer Cottan in Line of Duty, where the plot revolved around the quest for the kingpin H and the implausible possibility that as he took his final breath he tapped out the letter in morse code, it’s something of a relief that here he eschews Hs altogether.
The English Game does improve slightly after a truly dire opening episode, but the interest really lies in themes that are glimpsed almost out of the corner of the eye, shoved to the margins by the heavy-handed central narrative. Suter, for instance, is offered a huge lump sum plus improved wages to leave Darwen and join Blackburn Rovers, which he accepts because he needs the money to rescue his mother and sister from his abusive father. Quite aside from the issue of whether it’s legitimate, without any evidence, to portray an actual person, albeit one who died more than a century ago, as a wife-beater, there’s a more universal question. Why shouldn’t Suter take the better offer? Darwen had paid to lure him from Partick and then they themselves were outbid: once professionalism has been accepted, why should there be a perceived need to give Suter an excuse for moving?
Other than giving one of the principal characters a troubled backstory, what is gained by blurring the central dilemma of professionalism, that without adequate checks money will dominate – something all too apparent in the super-club era – and that the transformation of the game into a job, while beneficial and necessary in opening it up to all, also inevitably erodes to an extent the camaraderie and athletic purity that are so central to the notion of sport as somehow spiritually improving?
It’s a thought that occurs now in discussions about a putative super-league. It’s easy to rail against it, to anticipate the potential tedium of the same super-clubs endlessly grappling with each other, to think of the social damage done to the non-super-clubs cast into permanent semi-irrelevance by exclusion from the main competition, to rage against the victory of capital over community, but there’s always also a thought of how history will view the debate. After 10 or 20 years of a super-league, and the brilliant football it would probably yield, would those arguments come to seem as irrelevant as those that once doubted the European club competitions, or British involvement in the World Cup, or, yes, professionalism and the formation of a league?
In The English Game, the toffs object to the working-class northern teams largely for reasons of status. And perhaps that’s how it was: after all, even leaving overt snobbism aside, it’s understandable that the university-educated teams who had codified the game not two decades earlier (in January 1864, the Football Association comprised eight south-eastern clubs plus Sheffield) would be resistant to an entirely different group of people taking over their game, particularly when they interpreted it in a very different way.
The tactical exposition in The English Game is clunkingly preposterous, but it’s not without substance: the passing game the northern teams came to favour (in part because they were smaller than their better-fed public school counterparts and so would have been seriously disadvantaged if they had no way of manoeuvring the ball away from physical clashes) was very different to the head-on charging practised by the game’s progenitors.
Although the point is not made explicitly in the series, the reason Darwen had to travel to London for their FA Cup quarter-final replay against Old Etonians in 1879 is that it was stipulated that all games from the quarter-finals onwards had to be played in London (the first match was not, as depicted in The English Game, played at Eton, but at Kennington Oval) – a not unreasonable requirement when most of the teams were based in the south-east. It’s notable that by the following season the regulation had been lifted, suggesting at least some flexibility on the part of the FA and a recognition that the geographic make-up of the game was changing.
And it would go on to change, spreading across the world. The English game became the Austrian game, the Hungarian game, the Argentinian game and, particularly, the Uruguayan game. It became everybody’s game, interpreted differently by every culture that embraced it. And that in turn created difficulties – as demonstrated in the tours made by British clubs to South America in the first half of the 20th century, which often became fractious with mutual misunderstanding, laying the ideological foundations for the controversy that would, for instance, overwhelm the 1966 World Cup quarter-final between England and Argentina. One of the fascinations of football is that it is simultaneously intensely local and utterly globalised, with all the tensions that brings.
But don’t expect to see any of that on Netflix, where the toffs drink claret and the proles drink beer (or whisky if they’re Scottish and having a bad time), the bank is forever foreclosing and an implausible number of goals are scored in the few seconds after kick-off. It’s a tremendous opportunity missed.
The 19th century saw the codification of the rules of football at several public schools, with those of Rugby School (first published 1845) and Eton College (first published 1847) being particularly influential, in addition to those of Harrow, Winchester and Shrewsbury. The need for alumni of different public schools to be able to play against each other resulted in several sets of "compromise laws", often known as Cambridge rules, being drawn up at the University of Cambridge between the 1830s and the 1860s.
In the second half of the century, a culture of independent "football clubs" began to thrive, particularly in London and Sheffield, with Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857, today being recognised as the world's oldest surviving independent football club. The example of Sheffield F.C., which published its first set of laws in 1859, soon led to a proliferation of clubs in and around the city playing "Sheffield rules". Sheffield hosted the world's first multi-team football tournament, the Youdan Cup, in 1867.
In general, each football club, school or university tended to have its own rules, which might differ on such fundamental questions as whether to follow the example of Rugby School by allowing the ball to be carried, with players carrying the ball being allowed to be "hacked" (kicked in the shins) by their opponents. The desire of football clubs for a common code was the impetus behind the foundation of the Football Association (FA) in 1863. Within the FA, there was an acrimonious debate between the "hacking" and "non-hacking" clubs. When the first meetings were held to discuss the FA's laws of football, the "hackers" were in the ascendancy, but the publication of the 1863 set of Cambridge rules (which forbade hacking) enabled the "non-hackers" to prevail and the FA's first Laws of the Game, published in December 1863, banned hacking and carrying the ball. The FA, initially dominated by London-based clubs, saw its influence gradually spread over the country by the success of FA Cup, first contested in the 1871–72 season.
Between 1863 and 1877, the FA and Sheffield rules co-existed, with each code at times influencing the other. Several games were played between Sheffield and London teams, using both sets of rules. After several disputes, the two codes were unified in 1877 when the Sheffield Football Association voted to adopt the FA laws, following the adoption of a compromise throw-in law by the FA. The Sheffield rules had a major influence on how the modern game of football developed. Among other things they introduced into the laws of the game are the concepts of corners, and free kicks for fouls.
International football began when teams representing England and Scotland met in a match at Kennington Oval in south London on 5 March 1870. A total of five games were played between the two teams to 21 February 1872 but they are not recognised as official internationals by FIFA because the Scottish players were all London-based and so not fully representative of Scotland as a nation.
The first official international, Scotland v England, was played on 30 November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, the West of Scotland Cricket Club's ground in Partick, Glasgow. It was a 0–0 draw watched by 4,000 spectators.[citation needed] On 8 March 1873, England's 4–2 win over Scotland at Kennington Oval was the first-ever victory in international football.
The late nineteenth century was dominated by the growing split between the amateur and professional teams, which was roughly aligned along a North-South divide. Northern clubs were keen to adopt professionalism as workers could not afford to play on an amateur basis, while Southern clubs by the large part stuck by traditional "Corinthian" values of amateurism. Eventually, in 1885 the FA legalized professionalism, and when Aston Villa director William McGregor organised a meeting of representatives of England's leading clubs, this led to the formation of the Football League in 1888. Preston North End were inaugural winners in 1888–89, and were also the first club to complete the double of both winning the league and the FA Cup. Aston Villa repeated the feat in 1896–97.
