Footballers' Wives

Infobox Television
show_name = Footballers' Wives


format = Drama/Soap opera
runtime = 44 minutes approx.
creator = Maureen Chadwick,
Ann McManus
starring = Zöe Lucker
Gillian Taylforth
Alison Newman
Gary Lucy
Jesse Birdsall
Sarah Barrand
Laila Rouass
John Forgeham
Peter Ash
Ben Price
Susie Amy
Ben Richards
Helen Latham
Cristian Solimeno
Jamie Davis
Daniel Schutzmann
Nathan Constance
Katherine Monaghan
Julie Le Grand
Phina Oruche
Chucky Venice
Lucia Giannecchini
channel = ITV
country = UK
first_aired = January 8, 2002
last_aired = July 15, 2006
num_series = 5
num_episodes = 43 (List of episodes)
(plus three specials)
producer = Shed Productions
related = "";
"Bad Girls";
"Football Wives"
imdb_id = 0302103

"Footballers' Wives" is a British television drama surrounding the fictional premiership football club Earls Park F.C., its players, and their wives. It aired on the ITV network from January 8, 2002 to July 15, 2006.

Background

The show centres around the fictional "Earls Park Football Club" (nicknamed 'Sparks'). The Series was produced by Liz Lake, Claire Phillips and Cameron Roach. Its Executive Producer was Brian Park. The show began as an ensemble of three different 'types' of football couple. However, from the third series on, the show more or less revolved around the character Tanya Turner (Zoe Lucker). Tanya left halfway through Series Four, which resulted in a massive ratings slump. Although Lucker returned midway through the next series, she was unable to raise ratings as much as expected. This was in part because many viewers had switched to BBC1's "Hotel Babylon".

U.S. television network ABC ordered a pilot for an American version, named "Football Wives". Lucy Lawless, Gabrielle Union, Eddie Cibrian, Kiele Sanchez, and James Van Der Beek were confirmed as part of the cast but ABC cancelled the show due to "potential conflicts with the National Football League."

On January 11 2007, Five's sister channel Five Life picked up the rights to air the entire series. It has so far aired the first series, with the first episode shown on 7th March 2007 at 9pm.

Earls Park Football Club's home games were played at real life Selhurst Park, which is the home of Crystal Palace Football Club.

Full cast

Episodes

There were 8 episodes in Series One. Series Two had 8 episodes. Series Three had 9 episodes. For Series Four, there were 9 episodes. Series five had 8 episodes.

Storyline guides

Series One (2002)

Series one began airing on January 8,2002 and concluded on February 26, 2002. It featured a total of 8 episodes. The series follows a group of footballers' wives whose husbands all play for the same team, Earls Park (nicknamed "Sparks"). Ian Warmsley, Sparks' latest signing, deals with his up-and-coming success. His wife Donna is more concerned with getting their son back from the woman who adopted him after her parents forced her to give him up when she was a mere teenager. Trouble crops up when their 8-year-old daughter is kidnapped from school in the final episode of the series. Donna's younger sister Marie is staying with them, causing all the trouble she can. She has a secret fling with Sparks' mid-fielder and ruthless bad boy Jason Turner, who is married to the beautiful, yet vile, Tanya Turner, TV's megabitch. Tanya is too busy to worry about the affair as she tries to save her husband's job when club owner Frank Laslett buys Italian stallion Sal Biagi, who takes Jason's job. Tanya and Jason take matters into their own hands on the way home from a club dinner, and in a drunken brawl, Tanya puts Frank into a coma. With the help of Jason, they push his car off the side of the road, making it look like a drunken accident.

Series Two (2003)

Series two began airing on January 8, 2003 and concluded on, February 26, 2003 with a total of 8 episodes. Series 2 kicks off with Tanya and Jason in court, lying in front of God. The whole English population are convinced Frank is deranged and that he tried to rape Tanya. Charges are dropped, and Tanya walks away scot-free. Chardonnay Lane-Pascoe and Kyle Pascoe raise Jackie Pascoe-Webb's child, Paddy Pascoe as their own. At the end of the series Jason sits on the rooftop, drunk and feeling sorry for himself, but as he slips and desperately grasps for a life-saving hold on the ledge, an unseen (by the audience) assailant hits his hands with a champagne bottle, causing Jason to fall to his death.

Series Three (2004)

Series three began airing on February 11, 2004 and concluded on, April 7, 2004, with a total of 9 episodes. The series begins with Chardonnay's funeral, after she died of anorexia. It is also revealed that she killed Jason. Tanya married Frank Laslett, as Jason left her with debts. He also wanted her to admit that he didn't rape her, and that Jason made her lie in court. Kyle finds new romance. Tanya had an affair with new captain Conrad Gates, and has to put up with his psychotic wife, Amber Gates. Tanya and Amber soon became arch enemies, and pit up for a vicious catfight. Amber Gates fakes her own kidnapping when Conrad starts seeing Tanya. Harley Lawson and Shannon Donnelly's lives are turned upside down when he becomes Earls parks new signing. Conrad also has an affair with new signing Noah Alexander. The season ends with a shocking cliffhanger. Tanya is pregnant with Frank's child. She killed Frank for his money by "shagging him to death" on a lethal combination of viagra, alcohol and cocaine. Amber Gates also is pregnant with Conrad's child. So Tanya has to pretend her baby is Conrad's to keep her boyfriend.

Series Four (2005)

The fourth series premiered on 31 March 2005 and concluded on, 26 May 2005 with a total of 9 episodes. Tanya and Amber both have their babies; Tanya swapped the babies at birth to hide that hers might have been Frank's, but this backfired when Amber's son (Tanya's, really) was smothered to death by Amber's dog. When the swap was discovered, Conrad and Amber claimed their rightful baby back and banished Tanya abroad. The footballers are involved in a rape scandal during a party in Spain. Shannon and Harley have marriage problems and eventually split up. Darius turns out to be the rapist of Katie in Spain, and has a breakdown when she kidnaps him for revenge. Jackie Pascoe marries club manager Roger Webb, who signs his son Seb to the club. Seb tries to cause trouble in their marriage, and is thrown out. Hazel leaves the club with her new girlfriend, a tennis player. New characters Bruno and Lucy Milligan have a destructive marriage when Bruno tries to control her. Lucy meets a man on the internet and runs away with him. He tries to kill himself, Lucy and Lucy's daughter Angelica, by locking them inside his car and turning on the exhausts. Bruno accidentally shoots Conrad. Its final episode was considerably edited on ITV1 with the full episode being shown in Ireland and Australia. The episode was not restored for the DVD release.

Series Five (2006)

The fifth and final series premiered on February 23, 2006 and concluded on April 13th, 2006 with 8 episodes. After Lucy leaves Bruno at the altar of their Pride and Predjudice" themed wedding, Amber takes the lead as the central character and wastes no time getting revenge on Bruno as she knows he killed Conrad. She moves in with him and inflicts her own brand of psychological torture on him by making him think he is losing his mind. Getting more desperate, Amber tries to poison and then shoot Bruno. In Amber's last and surely campiest scene, she is shown wearing what looks like one of Cher's old costumes. In the struggle, she ended up shooting Roger Webb, who loses his sight. Amber was then sectioned to a mental institute for bleeding on the brain and left the show! Shannon now divorced from Harley and feeling lonely, was delighted to hook up with new Earls Park signing Callum Watson. Shannon moved Callum in; however, his interfering mother came with him and caused havoc. New characters included Tremaine Gidigbi and Liberty Baker, who married in Episode 5 in an Egyptian-themed, typically over-the-top wedding. Liberty, a top supermodel, looking shockingly similar to Naomi Campbell, was caught out by the press having a lesbian affair with her P.A. Urszula Rosen, and then was shamed by starring in a Japanese advert that made her out to be a cannibal. Tanya returned, once Amber was out of the way, and set about seducing the latest star of Earls Park, Paulo Bardoso. Tanya went head to head with Eva de Wolffe (Joan Collins, best known as "Dynasty" super bitch Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan). Tanya's joy at snatching Paulo from Eva's clutches was short-lived; he was taken to a mental hospital after a breakdown, and she found herself penniless. Garry Ryan, the new club chairman, kills Roger and Jackie leaves to live with her recovering son Kyle in Australia. Tanya discovered evidence that proved Garry's involvement. However, as series five ended, Garry was offering Tanya some cocaine laced with poison, just as she was trying to come to a "settlement" with him over the tape recording that proved he caused Roger's death.

Cancelled

In May 2006, it was announced by Shed Productions and ITV that no further series of "Footballers' Wives" would be commissioned. Its cancellation had been blamed on falling ratings, particularly during fifth series where they frequently faced defeat for their timeslot from BBC One's "Hotel Babylon" during the first half of the series. Despite their comeback to win the competition against BBC One's "The Family Man" (Lead-in from "Hotel Babylon"), the figures did not reach expectations. [http://www.itv.com/news/entertainment_1831377.html] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4969634.stm]

Five Life

In early 2007, British channel Five Life reached a deal with Shed productions to get the rights to all episodes of "Footballers' Wives".

"Football Wives" - American remake

U.S. Network ABC has given an order for a pilot version for an American version of "Footballers' Wives," named "Football Wives". It was based on the British version using similar plots, but a complete new cast was used. The pilot also focused on American football, and not Association football as "Footballers' Wives" did. The pilot was not picked up due to budget reasons, and cast members Lucy Lawless and Bryan White have confirmed that the project is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Sport Relief special

On Saturday 15 July 2006 in the UK, the BBC aired a final mini-episode as part of Sport Relief, that was broadcast during the show at 11.30pm. It was only a comic six minute episode and it didn't tie anything up. [ [http://www.sportrelief.com/whatson/footballerswives "Footballers' Wives" - SportRelief.com] ]

Cast

* Zöe Lucker - Tanya Turner
* Sarah Barrand - Shannon Donnelly-Lawson
* Laila Rouass - Amber Gates
* Ben Richards - Bruno Milligan

Inspiration and connections

Between the third and fourth series of "Footballers' Wives", Zöe Lucker's character of Tanya Turner was convicted of possession of drugs and was sent to jail for six months. The company who produce the show, Shed Media, also produce the show "Bad Girls", which centres around a women's prison. For three episodes of "Bad Girls", the character of Tanya Turner crossed over and was seen being her usual self and causing mischief for others in jail, including being arrested for poisoning inmates. Turner was eventually released when a series of events lead to the Governor forcing a criminal to confess to planting the drugs on her.

Many of the principal characters are thinly veiled caricatures of famous UK footballers, including Justin Fashanu and David Beckham, and their associated wives.

A number of celebrities have made cameo appearances in the series, appearing as themselves. They include: Sol Campbell, Peter Stringfellow, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Jordan, Antony Worrall Thompson, Peter Andre, Lionel Blair, David Seaman, Richard Madeley, Judy Finnigan, Teddy Sheringham, Calum Best and Rula Lenska.

"Footballers' Wives: Extra Time"

With the success of "Footballers' Wives" came the spin-off series, "" that began on ITV2 on 26 May 2005. It aired after Series Four of the original and several characters, including Bruno and Lucy Milligan, Seb Webb, Harley and Shannon Lawson, Katie Jones and Amber Gates, appeared on the series. The first series features the sister of Tanya Turner, Anika Beevor. Series Two debuted on 23 February 2006 with stars Peter Ash as Darius Fry and Julie Le Grand as Janette Dunkley from the original series as regular cast members. Nicholas Ball who portrayed Garry Ryan in the series crossed over to "Footballers' Wives" for Series 5 as the new Chairman of Earl's Park Football Club. The series was Executive Produced by Cameron Roach. The series additionally aired in the United States under the name .

Foreign audience

"Footballers' Wives" has aired in Portugal, Brazil, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, France, Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, South Africa, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Denmark and the United States. The Swedish broadcaster Kanal 5 has retitled the show "Fotbollsfruar", which translates to "Football Wives".

It began in the United States in the summer of 2005 on BBC America. The channel has aired series 1-5 and both seasons of Overtime.

The show airs in Ireland on TV3. Many Irish viewers receive Ulster Television (UTV) (a subsidiary of ITV) and also watch it on that channel. Often, the same episodes air at the same time.

In Turkey, show airs on e2. e2 has aired 1, 2, 3 and 4th seasons. 5th season will air in spring.

In Germany, RTL made an attempt in 2005 to recreate the look and feel of the show with an adapted version, called "Das geheime Leben der Spielerfrauen" (The Secret Life of Footballers' Wives). [http://www.rtl.de/tv/spielerfrauen/popup.php?start_page=1] The original scripts were rewritten to appeal to a German audience. The show failed terribly and was cancelled after only four episodes had aired.

In Slovenia is airing on Kanal A as "Žene nogometašev".

In Italy, Mediaset produced an own version of the series, "Ho sposato un calciatore". It was axed after one season.

The show is currently airing in Latin-America in the channel "fox life" (as of June 2007)The show is received in various parts of Asia (for example Singapore) under the cable channel BBC Entertainment.

In Canada, CBC Television launched a similar series, "MVP", in early 2008. That show's creator acknowledged "Footballers' Wives" as an inspiration, but chose to create a similar series about hockey from scratch rather than directly adapting "Footballers", as she felt that some elements of the original series — particularly the broad campiness of some British humour — would not translate well to a Canadian audience. [ [http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2008/01/08/4759169-cp.html "Sexy MVP worries NHL"] , canoe.ca, January 8, 2008.]

DVD releases

Series 1-5 have been released on DVD in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.

Series 1 of "Footballers' Wives: Extra Time" has been released in the UK, Australia and the US. Series 2 of "Extra Time" has also been released in Australia, with a US release slated for October 2008.

References

External links

* [http://www.footballerswives.tv "Footballers' Wives"] Official website
* [http://www.shed-insider.net "Shed Insider"] , fan-site of Shed Productions' programs.
*
* [http://www.bbcamerica.com/genre/drama_mysteries/footballers_wives/footballers_wives.jsp BBC America - Footballers Wive$]
* [http://www.online-footballers-wives.piczo.com/ Footballers Wive$ series 6 Piczo Fansite]