How accurate really is Netflix’s new drama The English Game?

Football fans in need of a fix while world sport is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, might be interested in watching Netflix series The English Game. 

The six-part series, from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, centres around real-life, Glasgow-born footballer Fergus Suter (Kevin Guthrie), who is considered to be the first full-time, professional player of the sport. 

Suter, who lived from 1857 to 1916, started his career at Glasgow side Partick before moving to England to play for Lancashire clubs Darwen and Blackburn, where he earned a wage at a time when football was strictly an amateur sport. 

The Netflix series shows how Suter, his fellow players and other key figures in football’s early years infused the game with new tactics and strategies that would shape the future of the sport.   

In keeping with other work from Fellowes’, whose drama Belgravia is currently airing on ITV, there is also plenty of drama off the pitch, with near-fatal injuries, alcoholic fathers and love triangles peppering the story that spans across several years.

And yet, as with many TV dramas, it is difficult to know what of the action actually took place, and what has been invented by the writers to drive the plot. 

Here, FEMAIL delves into the history books to fact check The English Game and determine what is true to life, and what is no more than fictionalised TV fantasy… 

The English Game’s claim: Scottish footballers Fergus Suter and Jimmy Love joined English team Darwen together in 1878

In The English Game, Suter is seen making the move from Glasgow to Darwen with his Partick teammate and fellow Scot Jimmy Love (James Harkness), after they were both headhunted by Darwen mill owner and team financier James Walsh (Craig Paterson). 

Once in Darwen, the men are both employed at a local mill, where they work while playing football. 

Both Suter and Love area paid a wage, although it is unclear whether this is to pay for their mill work, their footballing, or both. 

VERDICT: FALSE 

In reality Suter did not move down to Darwen with Love but followed his friend after seeing his success in England. There is also suggestion Suter was not headhunted, but wrote and applied to join the team. Finally, Suter was a stonemason, not a mill worker. 

Records show Love made the move from Partick to Darwen before Suter, who officially joined the team in 1878. It is not clear when exactly the move takes place in The English Game, although it is thought to be around the same time. 

Suter also made the first move to join Darwen, penning a letter to the team’s president, Tom Hindle, asking if he could make the move, after seeing Love’s success.

While Fellowes imagines Suter and Love both working in a Lancashire Mill, in reality Suter was a stonemason and continued this work in England. 

However he gave up his job as a stonemason during his time at Darwen, fuelling rumours that he was earning his wage as a full time footballer. Love continued as a millworker while playing for Darwen.  

The English Game’s claim: Fergus Suter is headhunted by Blackburn and offered more money. He accepts the offer and transfers to the club in order to help his mother and sisters escape his abusive father

In the Netflix drama, Suter causes great controversy when he announces he will be leaving Darwen for local rivals Blackburn after being headhunted and offered more money. 

The show alleges that the driving motivation for Suter is that he wants to earn more money in order to afford to bring his mother and sister down from Glasgow, away from the family home where they are living with his abusive father. 

Suter ultimately accepts the offer and moves to Blackburn, where he remains. The move happened in 1880, although The English Game does not give an exact date.

VERDICT: FALSE 

It is widely agreed Suter did not need the money for family reasons and simply wanted to earn more. He also moved to Blackburn Rovers, not the fictional side of Blackburn. Experts including historian Andy Mitchell have speculated there could have been another reason behind Suter’s move. 

Writing on a post for the Scottish Sport History blog, Mitchell suggested: ‘According to a family legend, he [Suter] fathered an illegitimate son by a servant girl, and the time of his move to Blackburn would have coincided pretty much exactly with the discovery that she was pregnant.’

The English Game’s claim: Jimmy Love follows Fergus Suter to Blackburn and almost lost his leg in the 1883 FA Cup Semi Final

The show sees the fictional side of Blackburn take on Darwen in the Semi-Finals of the 1883 FA Cup, England’s oldest football tournament. 

During the match, Love, who had followed Suter to the club, is badly injured in a rough tackle by Darwen player Tommy Wallace. The extent of the damage is so severe that Love almost loses his leg and it puts an end to his football career. 

As a result, Love quits the sport and misses out on the finals. Wallace offers to step in for the injured player and takes his spot in the Blackburn line-up for the match, despite playing for their local rivals.  

VERDICT: FALSE 

Love only played for Darwen until 1879 and it appears that he never played alongside Suter at Blackburn. Once again, the team ‘Blackburn’ doesn’t actually exist. 

There were two Blackburn sides at the time: Blackburn Rovers, which Suter played for, and Blackburn Olympic.

Blackburn Rovers did not make it to the semi-finals of the 1883 FA Cup, although Blackburn Olympic did. 

Following the end of Love’s football career in Lancashire, there doesn’t seem to be many records showing what happened to Love.

There’s some evidence to suggest he may have died of a fever after signing up to the Royal Marines. 

The English Game’s claim: The Football Association investigated Blackburn for paying players ahead of the 1883 FA Cup Final

In the series, Blackburn make it to the finals of the 1883 FA Cup, where they are due to face the Old Etonians – a team made up of players who attended the private school.

Old Etonian players also sit on the Football Association, the governing body of English football. 

Throughout the series there are rumblings that the FA are investigating the payment of footballers like Suter at teams including Darwen and Blackburn. 

However this comes to a head before the FA Cup finals as the Old Etonians do all they can to stop Blackburn from competing in full force, in the hope that it might make for an easier match. 

The FA committee takes the decision to disqualify Blackburn from the tournament. 

However Blackburn appeals  the decision and sends Suter to plead its case to the FA committee in London. There he explains that players like himself need to be on a wage in order to play as the time-intensive, manual jobs they would otherwise be doing leave little time for training and matches. 

In his speech, he appeals to the gentlemen’s honour and suggests it would be an unfair match if they were to go against tired, hard working men.

Following a frank discussion in London, the committee decides to let Suter and his paid teammates play in the final.

VERDICT: TRUE

The Football Association was investigating clubs for paying players, with Suter being the prime example after he was paid a wage at both Darwen and Blackburn. 

Football in the 1870s was strictly an amateur game as the upper class feared that if players started getting paid, then a team could gather the best footballers around to be victorious.

Yet, during his time with Darwen, Suter dropped his stonemason work, fuelling rumours he was being paid.

In a 1902 interview with the Lancashire Daily Post, Suter said: ‘Well, we had no settled wage, but it was understood that we interviewed the treasurer as occasion arose. Possibly we should go three weeks without anything, and then ask for £10.’

After much debate, on July 20, 1885, the FA announced that it was ‘in the interests of Association Football, to legalise the employment of professional football players’.

The English Game’s claim: Fergus Suter lifted the FA Cup in 1883 after Blackburn beat the Old Etonians in the final

The English Game culminates in a dramatic final between Suter’s Blackburn team and the Old Etonians. 

It ends with Blackburn winning the match 2-1 in extra time, making them winners of the FA Cup.  

VERDICT: FALSE

The English Game’s climax actually combines the events of several different FA Cup finals to create its storybook ending.

In 1882, Suter’s Blackburn Rovers played against the OId Etonians but unfortunately lost the game 1-0.

The following year, a different team from the area – the Blackburn Olympic – bested the Old Etonians in the FA Cup final, winning 2-1. 

Suter’s team would finally lift the trophy in 1884, emerging victorious by beating Queen’s Park 2-1.

Suter also won the FA Cup with Blackburn Rovers in 1885 and 1886.  

The English Game’s claim: Old Etonian player Lord Arthur Kinnaird became President of the FA

The other protagonist in The English Game is Old Etonian captain Arthur Kinnaird (Edward Holcroft), who plays against Blackburn in the closely-fought 1883 FA Cup final.

A closing caption of the series claims Kinnaird later became the president of the Football Association.

VERDICT: TRUE

This is true. Old Etonian Lord Arthur Kinnaird replaced Major Francis Marindin (Daniel Ings) as President of the  in 1890 and serving in the role until his death in 1923.

He was described as ‘without exception, the best player of the day’ and played in a staggering nine FA Cup finals.

The English Game’s claim: Martha Almond and Fergus Suter were in a love triangle with the Blackburn manager

In The English Game, Suter strikes up a romance with Martha Almond (Niamh Walsh), a street singer and waitress.

In the series, the pair are caught in a love triangle with Blackburn manager Mr Cartwright, who fathered Martha’s illegitimate child.  

VERDICT: FALSE  

There is little evidence to suggest that the three characters were entangled in a love triangle. 

However, Martha, the daughter of a cotton mill manager, was a real person and did go onto marry Suter in 1883, when she was 19 and he was 25.

‘She’s a real person,’ actress Niamh Walsh told the RadioTimes. ‘[But] she exists in historical records only as a name.

‘Because of the historical records, we know much less about the women than we do about the men – but happily, not in this show.’