# The English Game (2020)

> Two 1870s footballers from opposite sides of Britain's class divide fight professional and personal battles to change the sport and the nation.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/84079

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 48 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, history
- Created by: Tony Charles, Julian Fellowes, Oliver Cotton
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Kevin Guthrie, Edward Holcroft, Niamh Walsh, Charlotte Hope, Craig Parkinson, James Harkness, Ben Batt, Joncie Elmore
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8403664/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: earnest, stirring, gritty, melancholic, hopeful

## What critics say

Audiences broadly rate the miniseries positively for its period sports drama, class-conscious storytelling and strong central performances.

## Synopsis

The English Game (2020) is a British historical sports miniseries created by Tony Charles, Julian Fellowes and Oliver Cotton for Netflix. Kevin Guthrie plays Fergus Suter, a Scottish mill worker turned professional footballer, opposite Edward Holcroft as Arthur Kinnaird, an aristocratic Old Etonian amateur whose privileged circle treats the game as a gentleman's pastime. Charlotte Hope and Niamh Walsh add personal stakes as the women whose lives are bound up in the same rigid social order. Across six hour-long episodes the engine is simple and sharp: working class players want to earn a living from the game while the amateur establishment insists the sport stay in the hands of the wealthy. Each episode moves between matches, workplace tensions in northern mill towns and drawing-room negotiations, building toward a single tense season of rivalry and reform. Set in 1870s England, the series balances period grandeur with grit, its tone earnest and stirring, with a bittersweet pull toward what the game costs its players. Its focus on class and sport recalls fans of Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders, and viewers who love underdog sports stories will find resonance in its portrait of ambition against privilege. A complete miniseries that rewards patient, character-driven viewing.

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