‘Downton Abbey’ creator turns to soccer
NEW YORK – With global soccer shut down these days, fans desperate for a fix of the beautiful game may find it from a rather unlikely source — the creator of “Downton Abbey.”
Julian Fellowes has created and cowritten the new Netflix series “The English Game,” a six-part look at the origins of a onetime British gentleman’s game that has become the most popular sport on the planet. The series launches on the streaming service Friday.
“There are certain sports that cut right through society and appeal to people at every level. And that seems to me to be a wholly good thing,” Fellowes said.
The series is set in 1879 and focuses on the first full-time professional players and how they infused the game with new tactics and passing strategies. But this being a Fellowes project, there’s plenty of drama off the pitch, too: the rise of both the working class and women’s rights.
Fellowes knew little about the origins of soccer when he began the project, but he was aware of its force firsthand: His son, Peregrine, is a rabid fan of Manchester United. Father and son attended games, and the elder Fellowes soon grew to admire the athleticism of the players.
“When you watch anything — and I do pretty well mean anything — being done superbly, it generates an interest even in the hearts of someone who is not particularly concerned with that subject,” he said. “Watching Man U coming down the pitch, running like a sort of Russian ballet, was extraordinary.”
“The English Game” is based on real events and centers on Fergus Suter, a Scott regarded as the first full-time professional. He was lured to the mill town of Darwin in England’s Lancashire region to join the local team, the first player to earn a salary for his skill.
Soccer was also helping industrial towns bind together, creating a sense of community and eventually spurring workers to demand changes together in the way they were treated.
“Here was something that would bind them into a unit, that would bind them into a community,” he said. “Most human beings spend their lives trying to feel they belong to something that has value. And here it was just given on a plate.”