Four sports-based sitcoms
If you're a comedy fan, it can be rare to switch on the TV and instantly be presented with a sitcom. You're more likely to see a football match, a drama or a gameshow playing out. There is a lot of sport on TV to enjoy, to the extent it has many channels dedicated to just that.
What occasionally happens though is there is a comedy about sport, something which can happily engage fans of both genres. We thought we'd take this moment to look back at four sports-based TV comedies you might not particularly remember...
The First Team
Written by the team behind The Inbetweeners, this 2020 comedy followed the mostly off-the-pitch misadventures of three young football players at a fictional Premier League club.
The stories focused on their friendship, and the players find themselves struggling with their mercurial Italian manager and the team's eccentric American chairman (played by Will Arnett).
It didn't exactly catch the world alight like Ted Lasso subsequently did, but you might like to give it a re-watch as it's an interesting look behind-the-scenes at the world of football.
The Outside Edge
Despite running for three series in the mid-1990s, this cricket-based sitcom isn't particularly remembered now.
Writer Richard Harris gently satirised middle class England through the members of Brent Park Cricket Club, all of whom have their own dysfunctional relationships and family problems.
Brenda Blethyn, Robert Daws, Josie Lawrence and Timothy Spall were the lead cast involved in this ITV comedy, playing the two very different couples brought together by the sport.
Thin Ice
The world of ice skating isn't particularly known to TV audiences, which made this 2006 sitcom set in Derby an interesting premise.
At the height of Torvill and Dean's popularity, the Derby Ice Bowl was state of the art, but times have changed for owner/manager Roy Piper and the Ice Bowl has seen better days. Likeable mum Jeanette, trains the junior 'Penguins' while her talented daughter Trisha harbours a dream to compete in the British Figure Skating Championships like her rebel friend Natalie. But chatelaine of the ice rink Barbara will do almost anything to thwart Jeanette and Trisha's plans - if her star pupil Natalie wins the competition, her career might be catapulted into the more glamorous surroundings of Deeside.
Trevor's World Of Sport
As the title of this 2003 sitcom (which was based on a Radio 4 series of the same name) suggests, it's all about sport. However, it's actually about the agents, managers and publicists involved in sport.
The plot hinges around Trevor (Neil Pearson), a sports agent to the stars who is married to his job. But it's not a happy marriage. One of his clients is going mad and the rest are driving him mad. He's a decent man trying to do the right thing in a world full of cut-throats. And the biggest cut-throat is his unscrupulous business partner, Sammy (Paul Reynolds).
Our favourite character in this one is Ralph (Michael Fenton Stevens)... the attention-seeking client who brings chaos to the office every time he appears. Look out for him!