Ted who? The Brits behind Mike Bassett, TV’s original – and best – football manager

Long before Gary Lineker was stepped down from Match of the Day, the BBC red carded another footballing icon: the former England manager Mike Bassett, played by Ricky Tomlinson.

Following the cult favourite film from 2001, Mike Bassett: England Manager – in which Bassett leads the Three Lions through a calamitous World Cup campaign – writers Rob Sprackling and John R. Smith took the idea for a follow-up sitcom to the BBC. The Beeb’s comedy team gave the idea its full scarf-wearing, sing-when-you’re-winning support and commissioned a Bassett pilot. But when the idea reached BBC top brass, they echoed the words of Bassett-inspiration Graham Taylor: “Do I not like that.” The potential sitcom was benched. “The head of comedy was devastated!” says Rob Sprackling. “They loved it – they couldn’t believe it didn’t go to a full series.”

Bassett transferred to ITV, where a six-part series – Mike Bassett: Manager – aired in late 2005. But in contrast to the film – often cited as shorthand for a very English strain of managerial incompetence – the Mike Bassett TV series is oddly forgotten.

Watched now, its mix of laughs and pathos play like a precursor to Apple TV+ winner Ted Lasso, which has returned for a third season. There are even parallels in the story. In the first season of Ted Lasso, the owner of AFC Richmond recruits the American football coach (Jason Sudeikis) – who has zero “soccer” experience – in a plot to destroy the club.

“Obviously that was the first season of our thing… and we only had one!” says Sprackling. “But that was the whole premise.” In Mike Bassett: Manager, Bassett is enlisted to manage his boyhood team, Wirral County FC, but the managing director (Michael Fenton Stevens) has designs on running the club into the ground – so he can sell off what’s left and build an IKEA-like store over its stadium. “A ‘Norbik’ store,” laughs Sprackling. “The Norwegian version – not quite as good as IKEA.”

Sprackling hasn’t watched any Ted Lasso – only because he hasn't got an Apple TV+ subscription, he explains, not because of a fictional footballing rivalry – so he can’t comment on Lasso’s tactics. “I guess it’s a bit of ‘soccer ball on the 25-yard line,’” he says. “The American version of English football is always funny.” But as a QPR fan, Sprackling isn't sold on the idea of Lasso’s fictional west London team. “AFC Richmond?” says Sprackling. “No.”

(Ted Lasso and Mike Bassett are linked by cameos from Sky Sports host Jeff Stelling though. It’s nice to imagine that Lasso and Bassett exist in the same football manager shared universe.)

The broad strokes of the Bassett series are a replay of the film – Bassett makes a pig’s ear of the job but plays a blinder before the final whistle – while he tries (and largely fails) to keep his wife, Karine (Amanda Redman), onside.

The series came from the writers’ deep affection for Bassett, though Sprackling was wary. “Because I loved the character and film so much,” he says. “We didn’t want to spoil the legacy of it. But we felt there was a lot in the character. A lot of that comes from Ricky. When you see a guy torn apart, an actor like Ricky fills in a lot of the blanks. It’s the way he delivers pathos. Your heart goes out to him. He could play the biggest b------ ever and you’d still love him.”

Tomlinson, says Sprackling, has just as much affection for Bassett. In terms of popularity, Bassett is a close runner-up to The Royle Family’s slovenly patriarch, Jim Royle. “Ricky says that when he walks around, he either gets ‘my a---!’ or ‘four four f---ing two!’ shouted at him,” laughs Sprackling.

Indeed, the original film’s best moments are well remembered: Bassett’s secretary mistakenly calling up Benson and Hedges because the team is written on the back of a cigarette packet; Bassett’s bleeped-out dressing room rant; and Bassett’s eloquent response to the fans’ constructive criticism (“F--- off!”).

The series’ best gags are just as good: a dodgy sports agent who once sold Bassett a player in a coma (“They switched the machine off after two weeks!”); and Jimmy Greaves awarding Bassett with a half-empty bottle of whiskey when he's named manager of the month (“Bloody hell, he’s drank half of it!”).

Like the Benson and Hedges gag, the jokes are broad and daft, but so daft they work. See Bassett spending his life savings on a Dutch striker who's actually a goalkeeper and catches the ball instead of slotting it into the net. So much depends on Tomlinson's delivery: the defeatist huff of a man who’s already broken by relentless incompetence.

Featuring a ragtag squad – a striker who hasn’t scored for eight months, the son of a sponsor (“Wirral Rubbish”) at right back, and a Serbian war criminal in goal – it’s a celebration of terrible football. The beautiful game is often an anomaly in sports drama. It's not cinematically triumphant – there's no knockout right-hook, no touchdown, no race across the finish line – because it’s near impossible to recreate the spontaneous magic of football.

The original film Bassett had to work around the actual footballing. Even the shiny, big budget Ted Lasso can’t quite do it convincingly – football scenes look like comic book panels from Roy of the Rovers. The Bassett TV show, however, which is set in the dregs of the football league, pitches it just right: shots that sail nowhere near the goal; the ball dribbling past ham-fisted keepers; and players who can’t string two passes together.

“It’s a pathetic standard of crap football,” laughs Sprackling. “A lot of that was down to the director, Martin Dennis.”

Following The Office, the Bassett series (at the BBC’s suggestion) smartly dumped the mockumentary format, which was soon-to-be-ubiquitous in TV comedy; though there’s plenty of heart – another staple of 2000s TV comedy. Playing to the wider ITV audience, Bassett has to tackle marriage troubles as football mediocrity takes its toll on Karine and her beauty business. Even Karine’s customers can’t resist a dig at Bassett’s tactics. “I’d just like to confirm my aromatherapy appointment on Thursday,” says an answerphone message from one Mrs Wainwright. “Oh, and by the way, you’re s––––, you are, Bassett!” (Which puts the “w–––––” jibes tossed at Ted Lasso into perspective.)

“It’s that domestic world,” says Sprackling. “It’s about football at home as well as on the pitch – how it impacts on the rest of your life. The film was geared towards lads. The TV series had a broader scope.”

Just as the Mike Bassett film was inspired by the documentary, Graham Taylor: An Impossible Job – about England’s failed campaign to qualify for the 1994 World Cup – the TV series takes inspiration from real footballing events. In one episode, Bassett launches an Eric Cantona-style kick at one of his critics. In another episode, he enlists a Paul McKenna-like hypnotist to help Wirral County break their losing streak. The former England manager Glenn Hoddle had used his faith healer to help players, while David Beckham had reportedly turned to the actual Paul McKenna to help get him out of a slump.

Most obvious is Paul Gascoigne spoof, Kevin “Tonka” Tonkinson (played by Dan Renton Skinner in the series). The hard-boozing, Geordie-accented, bleached-blond dynamo is about as subtle as Gazza himself. Tonka falls off the wagon when his wife is killed by a llama, but still goes on to score in a crucial game. “Tonka, is this the best day of your life or what?” asks Bassett as they celebrate in the showers post-game. “Well, apart from me wife dying, like,” replies Tonka.

Mike Bassett: Manager was a rarity for ITV – an actual decent sitcom – and well received at the time. “It had three million viewers for a 10 o’clock slot on Thursday night, which was pretty amazing,” says Sprackling. “It was ITV’s best result for comedy in 20 years. We had brilliant reviews – it was pick of the week in most papers. We thought, ‘Great, we’ve definitely got a second series!’”

Everyone behind the scenes was a fan. ITV chief executive Charles Allen said it was his favourite show. But there was a sudden, unexpected change in management. Everyone who’d championed the show, including Allen, departed. Like the BBC, new ITV bosses sent Bassett to the showers before his much-needed extra time.

“New people came in and s–––canned loads of stuff,” says Sprackling. “They just killed it. I think it takes two series for anything to filter into the public consciousness – you need that second series to break out. You only need two, like Fawlty Towers, but once you have two it becomes this thing.”

There were later attempts at another film – ideas included Bassett going to manage the US and Iran women’s teams – but it never worked out. Ricky Tomlinson was game for a Bassett comeback though. “Whenever we talked about a new movie, he was all in,” says Sprackling.

The series is now languishing on YouTube. But, as Ted Lasso's mantra of “believe” proves, football remains a fertile ground for heartfelt comedy.

“It’s the passion and emotion behind it,” says Sprackling. “There are people who cry over football but might never ever cry with their family. It’s a way that people express themselves. That strong sense of community and bonding together and feeling as one. But ultimately, it’s trivial and pointless. Deep down inside, we all know it doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant but somehow it gets inside you. It’s comic-tragic. That’s kind of beautiful in a way.”