Netflix confirms start date for new Julian Fellowes drama ‘The English Game’

The English Game will premiere on Netflix later this month!

Written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, the brand new period drama will dramatise the origins of football in England during the 1870s.

The six 60-minute episodes will tell the story of how modern football came from a joining together of Etonians and factory workers to create a sport now played by 250 million in more than 200 countries.

The highly anticipated series stars Edward Holcroft (Wolf Hall) as Arthur Kinnaird – known as the ‘First Lord of Football’ – and Kevin Guthrie (Dunkirk) as Glasgow native Fergus Suter – often considered to be the first recognised professional footballer.

The limited mini-series was first announced in 2018 and filming began in the north of England last year.

All six episodes of The English Game will be available to watch exclusively on Netflix from Friday 20th March.

The cast also includes Henry Lloyd Hughes (Parade’s End), Craig Parkinson (Indian Summers), Sam Keeley (In the Heart of the Sea), Joncie Elmore (Downton Abbey), Gerard Kearns (Shameless) and Charlotte Hope (Game of Thrones).

They’ll be joined by Kate Phillips (The Crown), Kate Dickie (Game of Thrones), Sylvestra Le Touzel (Titanic), Ben Batt (The Village), James Harkness (The Victim) and Niamh Walsh (Jamestown).

Julian Fellowes is a busy man this year, with HBO’s The Gilded Age finally beginning production, a new adaptation of The Wind in the Willows on the way, and a script for the second Downton Abbey movie to be written.

The Downton Abbey movie is available on DVD on Amazon.