''Dream Team'' is a British sports drama 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 football club, Harchester United. Originally broadcast in a 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 show's cast varied over the years with many coming's and going's 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 ...

, Alison King, 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 " C ...

, Philip Barantini and Francis Johnson were the most frequently cast members over the 10 seasons. Notable other actors included Martin Crewes,

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''. I ...

Charles Venn Charles 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 One's ''Dream Team ...

, Michael Melia, Luke Mably, Dhaffer L'Abidine, Jamie Lomas, Robert Kazinsky, Kara Tointon and Robbie Gee. Many real life 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 Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

and soon-to-be lover of Lynda. The end of the series resulted in Harchester winning the FA Cup. 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 football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for financial irregularities and corruption after they were found guilty of

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, ...

. 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/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 high-precision r ...

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 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 (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

. The main storyline of series ten revolved around "Dragonslayer", a mysterious poster on the club's fansite revealing the innermost secrets of the club. It was ultimately this storyline that resulted in the arson attack that ended the series. Following the announcement of ''Dream Team'' being axed, many of the main cast members left the programme at the start of series ten. These included Alex Dempsey, Lynda Block and Ryan Naysmith.

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) * Alison King 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) *Philip Barantini as Billy O'Neill (1998–2000) *Francis Johnson as Ian Coates (1997–1999) * Michael Melia as Jerry Block (1998–2000) *Ray MacAllan as Jeff Stein (1999–2004) * Martin Crewes 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) * Luke Mably as Scott Lucas (1999–2002) *Jim Alexander as Jamie Parker (2000–2003) * Mark Moraghan 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 and Coventry, 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's Vicarage Road doubling as Addison Road for the show's first two seasons (1997–99) with a move to a new stadium, The Dragon's Lair seeing Milwall's The New Den becoming The Dragon's 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 British Satellite Broadcasting's

Galaxy Channel A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

soap '' Jupiter Moon'' in 1990, a show only curtailed by the merger of its network BSB with Sky television. 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, animators projected photographed live-action movie images onto a glass panel and traced ov ...

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

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

, and internationally in the UEFA Cup, 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 for series one (1997–1998), Le Coq Sportif 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 A third jersey, alternative jersey, third kit, third sweater or alternative uniform is a jersey or uniform that a sports team can wear instead of its home outfit or its away outfit during games, often when the colors of two competing teams' ot ...

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 (like Sky, 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 on ICTV, in Serbia on Studio B television, in France on france 4, in Montenegro on TV In, in Estonia on TV4, in Bosnia and Herzegovina on

BHT1 BHT1 is a Bosnian national 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 Latin alphabet and Bosnian Cyr ...

and in North Macedonia on MRT 1. 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) Sky UK original programming 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 English-language television shows