The English Game on Netflix

Golden Dr Otto

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Anybody watching this? Thoroughly recommended. It’s a period drama (nobody make the joke please) about the evolution of the game in the 1870s as the northern mill towns started getting into the FA Cup latter stages against posh schools like the old etonians.

Particularly fun to match the characters to the forum posters on here.
 
Yeah seen the first 3 episodes so far, not rushing through them as I have quite a clear social schedule for the next few weeks. Good programme.

Although has there been a single save by a goalkeeper in any match yet? ?
 
Haha it’s interesting to see how they present the game as a little more rugby and mob mentality like. There is something highly unsatisfying about goals without nets.

I’m sure there is poetic license but fascinating to not the social class sub plots....I never realized just how much the old private schools dominated the game .

also who trains in an overcoat? Pre bib days
 
Really enjoyed it. Re class divides, take a look at the first dozen or so finals and the teams who were competing in them. Oxford University won the cup in its third year and were in three of the first eight finals. That alone says it all. Bladdy toffs.

I noticed the lack of saves as well. Must have been the ancestors of Richard Knight and Andre Arendse.
 
Watched them all and found myself Googling the characters and matches referred to. It's very much based on fact and many of the characters portrayed were real people, all of the games (bar one) that are featured were real games and the scores were correct (bar one). It's historically pretty accurate, with a bit of poetic licence.

Good series which anyone interested in football should watch as it portrays a seminal time in the game 150 years ago, when it could have easily gone down a very different route to the game we know today, but for the foresight and courage of a small number of individuals. They actually employed a "football choreographer" for the action scenes, and he was on TalkSport the other day.
 
Before the rules of Association Football had been formulated, many features of rubgy were part of the game. Some of the tactics of the early public school teams were borrowed from rugby. One tactic was for most of the outfield players in possession to move forward slowly , protecting the ball by making short passes and preventing the oponents from tackling by obstrcting their path to the ball. This was similar to a rolling maul in modern rugby union. When within range of goal the ball would be passed to one of the free outfield players, who would then take a shot on goal. It would be years before specialist positions for outfield players would develop.

For a short while after the split with rugby, tackling by brutally kicking an opponent's legs was legal. Mickey Lewis would have been in his element. This was known as 'hacking' and was a popular part of the game for some players. Many refused to continue playing Association Football after it was banned and moved to rugby instead.
 
it was definitely entertaining, my wife who dislikes football watched it and enjoyed it.
it is surprisingly accurate on the whole, with some very definite exceptions (things like the combining of Blackburn Olympic and Blackburn Rovers for ease of story - which leads to Suter playing in the 1883 cup final which didn't actually happen (he played in the 1884 final for Rovers v Queens Park (Queens Park were invitees to the early FA Cup although Scottish).
 
I hope that the game is referred to as 'soccer' in the series.
 
It’s an amusing watch. Some of the footy dialogue is a bit anachronistic! “Knock it into space”, “we’ll hit them on the break”. I’m looking forward to a “can he not knock it?”, “I’m sick as a parrot guv” and “do I not like that”.
My son’s annoyed that there’s hardly any footy in it and the keepers never ever save anything.
 
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I only consciously realised when talking to my son today, that what this series shows is how soccer might have gone the same way as rugby, with professional (northern working class) and amateur (southern middle/upper class) leagues.
Maybe the fact that it didn’t made it a global game. (Maybe that’s obvious to others already!)
 
Very surprised by this reaction - struggled through to the end of Ep 3 and gave up, thought it was absolute rubbish! Maybe I'll give it a second chance
 
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