The First Team

Can football and sitcom ever mix?

No sooner had the extended Premier League season ended than another footballing story started. You might not have noticed, but Apple TV's culture-clash sitcom Ted Lasso, about an American NFL coach with no soccer experience taking over at a Premier League team, began over the weekend. It arrived to a pretty muted response. It's not the only footy sitcom we have seen this year. Inbetweeners writers Damon Beesley and Iain Morris's disappointing The First Team had some distinctly lower-midtable reviews for the BBC. It's something of a trend that, whenever the sit of the com is in a football club, the laughs are hard to find. Mike Bassett: Manager lasted a series, The Cup and Warren United have tried it too, but none of them quite worked.

The penultimate episode of a football comedy that struggles to penetrate. The team have a caretaker manager, and chairman Will Arnett reacts to their opening loss by organising a doomed meet-and-greet with fans. The new sports psychologist, meanwhile, is predictably incompetent.

TV review: The First Team, series 1 episode 4

I've gone from being unimpressed with the show, to mildly hating it.

How do professional footballers fill the time between training sessions? This episode of the new comedy from The Inbetweeners' writers explores various options. Petey plays pranks, Jack meets up with a girl he met online and wide-eyed American Mattie befriends a star midfielder.

There was a BBC Two offering called The First Team, about an (unnamed) Premier League kickball club, which sounded initially unappealing. It is delightful, or at least as delightful as anything about football that sets itself up as a comedy might ever manage to be.

Written by the people behind The Inbetweeners, it focuses on the losers of the bunch: keen young woke Yank, stoic scouser, blingy gawk who believes anything posted is good publicity. It is joyous and eventually moving, in its explorations of greed, hashtags, bullying, crap management, unentitlement, and the average 20-grand-a-week bloke's grasp of the #MeToo movement. It is far from perfect but it's punchy, and, crucially, funny.

Review: Why new football comedy shows promise

The new comedy from the creators of The Inbetweeners was always going to have a problem: how do you send up something so brilliant at satirising itself?

The First Team review

The First Team just isn't ready for the big time. Back to the training ground.

The First Team review

On paper, this pitchside sitcom should be an open goal - but it isn't quite there yet.

The First Team writers interview

Damon Beesley and Iain Morris tell us all about new BBC sitcom The First Team, set behind the scenes of a top level football club...

The First Team review

Unlikely lads make this slow-burn sitcom not just for football fans.