The English Game - a half-hidden Fellowes-scripted half-gem

These are odd times we live in. On Monday, I had a cough and a slight ache in my lungs, which has resulted in me spending the whole week - barring a walk or two - in my flat, avoiding social contacts and watching TV. So, not that different to my usual routine, then, but with less work.

This means I can't complain about lack of blogging material. Putting aside the Maleficent sequel (bonkers) and the Pierce Brosnan Bond films (I do think he's my favourite Bond) for now, let's have a look at a recent Julian Fellowes-penned series. No, not Belgravia, sadly - though I read the book back when it was still an app, so I'm not too impatient - but The English Game.

I don't know if it's just my Netflix feed, but they don't seem to be promoting this series very hard, do they? My Swedish daily, which let me down when it came to Onward, made good by pointing out that this was on, otherwise I might have missed it. Perhaps it's because I mostly watch nerdy series and rom-coms on Netflix. Or else the algorithm thought, much as I myself did: "nah, this villain-ogling female knows zilch about football and cares less, it's probably not for her".

And to be sure, I wasn't too thrilled to hear Fellowes would be writing a miniseries (does it qualify as that? Six episodes?) about the beginnings of football when he should be spending his time finally finishing The Gilded Age. I have to say, though, I enjoyed this series more than I expected. Fellowes has had two co-writers, and they've all done a good job. However, although I'm guessing the writers have given themselves a great deal of poetic licence, reality does seem to come in the way of a good story once or twice.

The series takes place in 1879 England and focuses on two football virtuosos - Arthur Kinnaird, well-to-do captain of the aptly named team the Old Etonians, and Fergus Suter "the shooter", who along with his mate Jimmy Love has perfected the strategy of passing the ball in a neat fashion rather than charging with it from one part of the playing field to the other. Suter and Love have been hired by Walsh, a Northern mill owner, in order to boost his football team of mill hands, Darwen FC. Problem is, it's against the rules to pay football players, so if the gentlemen amateurs who rule the FA Cup committee want to make trouble, they can.

The first episode had me gripped - and, yes, even I was rooting for the mill workers. The series looked as if it was going to be a mix between North and South (Gaskell version, not Orry, George and the crazy villains) and The Four Minute Mile, with a bit of Chariots of Fire thrown in. I thought the story would be about the Old Etonians and Darwen FC competing for the cup - perhaps throughout a couple of years - while Kinnaird and Suter, at first hostile, come to respect each other more with time. And yes, the last bit happened. But halfway through the series, Suter abandons Darwen for Blackburn, another Northern working-class team that pays more. Yes, he needs to help his mother and sister who are brutalised by his father, so it's understandable, but this wasn't the drama I wanted to watch. What do I care about Blackburn, its envious captain and its somewhat wimpy owner Mr Cartwright, who isn't half as endearingly folksy as Walsh? I was invested in Darwen, hang it! I didn't want to see Suter's former team mates glowering at him for a whole episode or two. That's just painful to watch. Give me some thrilling matches!

But there, they can't tamper with history so much that the wrong teams meet up in the final, so we have to swallow that the Darwen folk come round and cheer on Blackburn anyway, because at least it's a Northern team and would be a victory for the workers etc. Hmmm. Not sure I buy it, but if it stops those glowering-at-Suter scenes, OK. At least the Darwen-Blackburn tensions, leading to a riot in a "friendship" game, set up the final argument, where the FA committee threatens to ban Blackburn from playing owing to unsportsmanlike behaviour and general rule-breaking.

One of the strengths of this series is that it takes the concerns of the Old Guard seriously. They're not just a bunch of over-privileged snobs seeking to oust honest working men (who are often better players, too) from "their" game. Arthur's friends are genuinely afraid of the consequences of allowing professional players. This is better explained than in The Four Minute Mile or Chariots of Fire, where as a viewer you just thought the obsession with "gentlemanliness" and amateurism barmy. If players are allowed to be paid, Arthur's pals argue, it would be possible for rich team owners to cherry-pick the best talent, leaving other teams with less money at a loss. Moreover, it would generate bad feeling leading to the kind of violence among fans witnessed at the Darwen-Blackburn game. It's hard to deny that much of what these gents feared has come to pass. Suter and co. have the better arguments and are clearly the future of football, but you do see where the toffs are coming from.

A girl in Class sneeringly referred to Downton Abbey as "white people being nice to each other". I sternly dismissed that remark - I mean, has she met Miss O'Brien? - but Fellowes at his best can set up scenarios where you understand both parties of a quarrel, and they can end up understanding each other too by listening to each other. There's also a refreshing feeling of getting right down to it when discussing some important issue, not hedging around for the sake of drama. Martha, Suter's girlfriend who was made pregnant by Cartwright a few years previously (they were in love, apparently, not just screwing around) is paid a visit by Mrs Cartwright (childless), who has just learned the truth. "She looks just like him", she says, gazing at Martha's daughter. "Like who?" Martha tries, but a look from Mrs Cartwright is enough for her to drop the pretence: "Yes, she does". It's not an easy path, and it doesn't happen right away, but the two women do end up "being nice to each other" in the end - and I, for one, am all for it.      

Of villains in the Thomas mould there are none. I don't recall there being any particularly tasty villain in Belgravia either - the baddie was of the caddish persuasion, and I'm not too fond of those - so here's hoping The Gilded Age delivers. When it finally comes.