''Dream Team'' is a British

sports drama A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme (arts), theme. It is a production in which a sport or a sports-related topic is prominently featured or is a focus o ...

television series produced by Hewland International which aired on

Sky One Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

from 1997 to 2007; it chronicled the on-field and off-field affairs of the fictional

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

football club Harchester United. Originally broadcast in a

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

format with two twice-weekly episodes (typically Tuesday and Thursday evenings) broadcast in the half-hour format. This continued for the first three seasons and 200 episodes, from which the show was reformatted into a prime-time one-hour drama weekly on Sunday nights where it remained for its next seven seasons until its final 419th episode. The show's cast varied over the years with many comings and goings that reflect the natural course of a professional football club throughout various seasons. Lisa Burstow,

Terry Kiely Terry Kiely (born September 1975 in Britwell) is an English actor. He is best known for his role in the Sky One series '' Dream Team'', where he played the popular character Karl Fletcher for eight years, despite initially only signing up for s ...

Alison King Alison Rosamund King (born 3 March 1973) is an English actress and model. She is known for her roles as Lynda Block in the Sky One drama series '' Dream Team'' (1998–2003, 2005–2007), and Carla Connor in the long-running ITV soap opera '' ...

, Danny Husbands, Andy Ansah, Emma Gilmour, Daymon Britton,

John Salthouse John Salthouse (born John Lewis; 16 June 1951) is a British actor and producer. His best-known screen roles are those of Tony in Mike Leigh's ''Abigail's Party'' and DI Roy Galloway in ''The Bill'' from 1984 to 1987. He has also appeared in "Co ...

Philip Barantini Philip Barantini (born 13 July 1980) is a British director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Known for his intense one-shot works, he directed the film ''Boiling Point'' (2021), its follow-up series (2023) and the miniseries ''Adolescence'' ( ...

and Francis Johnson were the most frequently cast members over the 10 seasons. Notable other actors included

Martin Crewes Martin Crewes is an Australian stage, television and movie actor. Early life Crewes was born in Barnet borough, London in 1968. He moved to Australia when he was 10 years of age, and attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, ...

Ricky Whittle Richard George Whittle (born 31 December 1979) is a British actor. Whittle first came to prominence as a model for Reebok in the early 2000s. He is known in the United Kingdom for his role as Calvin Valentine in the soap opera ''Hollyoaks''. ...

Charles Venn Charles Okechukwu O. Venn (born 24 June 1973), formerly known by the stage names Chucky Venice and Chucky Venn, is a British actor, known for his roles as Ray Dixon in ''EastEnders'', Jacob Masters in '' Casualty'', Curtis Alexander in Sky On ...

Michael Melia Michael Melia (born 25 July 1945 (in a preview of an episode of '' In Suspicious Circumstances'' where Melia plays Freddie Mills, the actor comments that the boxer died on his birthday)) is a British actor best known for his work on television. ...

Luke Mably Luke Mably is an English actor. Career Mably portrayed White in the thriller ''Exam'' under the direction of Stuart Hazeldine. He had a lead role in the 2010 supernatural drama television series ''The Gates''. He also played Prince/King Edvard ...

Dhaffer L'Abidine Dhafer L'Abidine (, also spelt Dhaffer L'Abidine, Zafer El-Abedin and Dhafer El Abidine; born 26 November 1972) is a Tunisian actor, director, screenwriter, producer and former professional football player. Biography Dhafer made his acting de ...

Jamie Lomas James Lomas (born 21 April 1975) is an English actor, known for his soap opera roles as Warren Fox in ''Hollyoaks'' and Jake Stone in ''EastEnders''. Early life Jamie Lomas was born on 21 April 1975 in Manchester. Career Before joining ''Ho ...

Robert Kazinsky Robert John Appleby (born 18 November 1983), known professionally as Robert Kazinsky, is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Casper Rose in the Sky One drama '' Dream Team'' (2005–2006) and Sean Slater in the BBC soap opera ''East ...

Kara Tointon Kara Louise Tointon (born 5 August 1983) is an English actress, known for portraying the role of Dawn Swann in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. In 2010, she won the BBC competition series ''Strictly Come Dancing'', and in 2015, she appeared a ...

and

Robbie Gee Robbie Gee (born 24 March 1970) is a British actor, best known for his '' Desmond's'' character Lee Stanley, for appearing in Guy Ritchie's crime caper '' Snatch'', and for his comedy roles in TV series like '' The Real McCoy'' and '' The Crou ...

. Many

real life Real life is a phrase used originally in literature to distinguish between the real world and fictional, virtual or idealized worlds, and in acting to distinguish between actors and the Character (arts), characters they portray. It has become a ...

footballers and members of English sporting community including presenters and commentators also featured on the show.

Premise

The show began in 1997 and centered on the Harchester United youth team. The next series, series 2 transmitted in 1998 concluding in 1999 focused on the first team for the first time and on Ian Coates, the manager, Jerry and Lynda Block, the owners of Harchester United and Luis Amor Rodriguez, star striker and soon-to-be lover of Lynda. The end of the series resulted in Harchester winning the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

. Series 3, that followed focused on the club fighting against relegation, qualifying for the highly acclaimed Champions League and being demoted to the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

for financial irregularities and corruption after they were found guilty of

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing (also known as game fixing, race fixing, throwing, rigging, hippodroming, or more generally sports fixing) is the act of playing or officiating a contest with the intention of achieving a predetermined result, v ...

. As the show developed, the storylines became more and more extravagant, with the character death toll rising significantly in later series. Some of the most outlandish storylines included a striker being shot by a

sniper A sniper is a military or paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with telescopic si ...

after winning the FA Cup, a fan being brought onto the pitch to play during a game, and later becoming a Premier League star, and a goalkeeper in gambling debt holding the entire team hostage before being killed by a SWAT team. With declining viewing figures and repetitive storylines, Sky decided not to renew the Dream Team contract, and in April 2006, the director of programmes at Sky One,

Richard Woolfe Joseph Richard Woolfe (born 14 August 1962) is a senior British broadcast figure. Until recently, Woolfe was the Creative Director of Prime Focus Productions, the UK arm of Prime Focus Group, a role created for him to help spearhead the post-produc ...

, confirmed the show would not return after the tenth series. The tenth series began on 29 October 2006, the final episode being broadcast on 3 June 2007, with viewers left unaware of which characters survived a massive fire that ripped through the Dragon's Lair during the final Premier League game of the season. However it is hinted that Harchester United win the Premier League thanks to a last minute goal from Jason Porter. The last ever song to be played on the programme was " Cast No Shadow" by

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment

Cast

Main cast

Cast members who featured most frequently during all ten seasons, this list may not include lead characters from certain seasons. *Lisa Burstow as Sandra Greene (1997–2004) *

as Karl Fletcher (1997–2007) *

as Lynda Block (1998–2007) *Danny Husbands as Danny Sullivan (2001–2007) *Emma Gilmour as Kelly James (1998–2000) *Daymon Britton as Sean Hocknell (1997–1999) *

as Frank Patcham (1997–2007) *

as Billy O'Neill (1998–2000) *Francis Johnson as Ian Coates (1997–1999) *

as Jerry Block (1998–2000) *Ray MacAllan as Jeff Stein (1999–2004) *

as Luis Amor Rodriguez (1998–2000) *

as Ryan Naysmith (2002–2007) *Clinton Kenyon as Warren Masters (1997–1999) *

as Curtis Alexander (2001–2006) *Nina Muschallik as Nikki Peggs (2001–2004) * Angela Saunders as Natasha Parker (2000–2004) *

as Scott Lucas (1999–2002) *Jim Alexander as Jamie Parker (2000–2003) *

Mark Moraghan Mark Stephen Moraghan (born 27 January 1963) is an English actor and singer. He has appeared in many British drama series including ''Peak Practice'', '' London's Burning'' and '' Heartbeat''. He is most famous for being the narrator for the ...

as Ray Wyatt (1999–2006)

Harchester United

Harchester United was the fictional Premier League football club featured in the series, known by their nickname "The Dragons" and club motto 'Contende Ad Caelum' meaning Strive for the Skies and/or Be The Best. Its geographical location was north of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

and

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

, and two miles east of Tamworth, a Midlands setting chosen so as not to alienate football fans from either the North or South. Its filming locations however, started with

Watford Watford () is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of Central London, on the banks of the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne. Initially a smal ...

Vicarage Road Vicarage Road is a stadium in Watford, England, and is the home stadium of EFL Championship, Championship club Watford F.C., Watford. An all-seater stadium, its current capacity is 22,200. History It has been the home of Watford since 1922, w ...

doubling as Addison Road for the show's first two seasons (1997–99) with a move to a new stadium, The Dragons' Lair seeing Milwall's The New Den becoming The Dragons' home for the next eight seasons.

Production

The shows's production overseen by Hewland International and aired on the

channel between 1997 and 2007. It was one of the earliest examples of 'subscription' television drama, arriving at a time when Sky television was the leading source in the genre. A unique identity to hold, Dream Team wasn't the first UK-made drama to crack this particular market, that accolade belonging to

Galaxy A galaxy is a Physical system, system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', ...

's soap ''

Jupiter Moon ''Jupiter Moon'' is a science fiction soap opera television series first broadcast by British Satellite Broadcasting's Galaxy channel in 1990. 150 episodes were commissioned and made, but only the first 108 were broadcast before the closure of ...

'' in 1990, a show only curtailed by the merger of the channel's owner,

British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting plc (BSB) was a television company, based in London, that provided satellite television, direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company ...

, with rivals Sky Television, shuttering virtually all of BSB's output in favour of Sky's. Seven years later, Dream Team began airing on Sky One in the soap opera format, with two twice-weekly episodes (typically Tuesday and Thursday evenings) broadcast in the half-hour format. This continued for the first three seasons and 200 episodes, from which the show was reformatted into a prime-time one-hour drama weekly on Sunday nights where it remained for its next seven seasons until its final 419th episode. The ''Dream Team'' series used a technique called

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, live-action film images were projected onto a glass panel and traced onto paper. This pr ...

to create the live action football sequences, that would put players from the clubs competing against real-life players and teams from the

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship, known simply as the Championship and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet Championship, is a professional association football league in England and Wales. Contested by 24 clubs, it is the highest divi ...

, and internationally in the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, and Champions League. Harchester United team kits were created by real kit manufacturers and were also available to buy whilst the show was on the air. These kits were made by

PONY A pony is a type of small horse, usually measured under a specified height at maturity. Ponies often have thicker coats, manes and tails, compared to larger horses, and proportionally shorter legs, wider barrels, heavier , thicker necks and s ...

for series one (1997–1998),

Le Coq Sportif Le Coq Sportif (, "the athletic rooster") is a French sportswear and sports equipment manufacturer based in Entzheim. Founded in 1882 by Émile Camuset, the brand first issued items branded with its now-famous rooster trademark in 1948. The com ...

for series two to seven (1998–2003), and later Valsport for series eight to ten (2004–2007). It has been theorised that the third kit worn by Everton players during the 2014–15 season were inspired by those donned by Harchester United.

Episodes

419 episodes were made over ten series. For the first three series, the show aired in a half-hour format of Tuesday and Thursday nights, with an hour-long omnibus airing on Saturday/Sunday mornings. The final episodes for series two and three were both an hour in duration and after receiving strong ratings in both cases, starting in series four, the show switched to a single hour-long episode on Sunday evenings.

Foreign audience

In the United States,

Fox Soccer Channel Fox Soccer (formerly Fox Soccer Channel & Fox Sports World before that) was an American television specialty channel specializing in soccer, owned by 21st Century Fox, which operated from 1997 to 2013. It formerly broadcast rugby and Australia ...

(like

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

, a part of News Corporation) aired ''Dream Team'' as part of their schedule outside of prime periods. The series also aired in India on STAR Sports, in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

on ICTV, in

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

on Studio B television, in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

france 4 France 4 () is a French free-to-air public television channel. Owned by France Télévisions, the channel is divided into two strands, with children's and family programming under the ''Okoo'' strand airing from 05:00 to 21:00 daily, and arts pr ...

, in

Montenegro , image_flag = Flag of Montenegro.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Montenegro.svg , coa_size = 80 , national_motto = , national_anthem = () , image_map = Europe-Mont ...

TV In Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ent ...

, in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

on TV4, in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

BHT1 BHT1 is a Bosnian national public broadcasting, public mainstream TV channel operated by Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT). The channel broadcasts on a daily basis for 20 hours in one of the two alphabets (Bosnian alphabet, B ...

and in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

MRT 1 MRT 1 (), is a television station in North Macedonia owned and operated by Macedonian Radio-Television. Current line-up News shows *'' Dnevnik MRT'' - main news at 10:00, 17:00, 19:30, and 23:00 *''MRT Vesti'' - news, runs at 13:00, and 15:0 ...

. It also aired on Botswana's national television station Btv, in Kenya on STV, and in South Africa on SABC 1.

References

External links

Dream Team Diehard - guide to episodes, characters, interviews and hundreds of screencaps across the series
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dream Team (Tv Series) 1997 British television series debuts 2007 British television series endings 1990s British drama television series 2000s British drama television series Television shows set in London Television shows set in Hertfordshire British English-language television shows Sky UK television dramas