GAME ON!

Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes explores the origins of football in a new Netflix period drama

- JUDY EWENS, SEAN MARLAND

The English Game

NEW Genre: Period drama Available: Friday 20 March Season: 1 Episodes: 6 Runs: 40-50min TVSW says: It’s an intriguing, captivating and previously unheard story

Downton Abbey’s creator Julian Fellowes moves the action out of the stately home and on to the football pitch for his new period drama, The English Game, which details the development of our national sport.

Beginning in 1879, the series – Fellowes’ first for Netflix – shows how the beautiful game has its roots in a clash between upper-class gentlemen and Lancashire mill workers.

One of the men at the centre of this class war was Arthur Kinnaird, the aristocratic captain of the Old Etonians football team, who helped invent the rules for what was then a strictly amateur sport.