The English Game fails to tell the fascinating origins of football

A series that purports to tell the fascinating origins of football ends up being a missed attempt at cinematic greatness, writes Dhruv Munjal

Give us a break then, Julian. Now is perhaps a good time to admit that the Downton Abbey creator’s fixation with a particular period in British history — fictional or otherwise — has gone a bit too far. The same old hats, the same old beards, the same old class struggles, and that same old British stiff upper lip we’ve come to dread.

Julian Fellowes’s latest is a take on the origins of football, the glorious sport we love to watch and play but whose beginnings are only vaguely familiar to the general public. Strangely enough, the story of The