Mike Basset England Manager was not what you might called a sophisticated satire. The set-up being that pretty awful Norwich City manager Bassett becomes surprise pick for England manager when no-one else wanted to do the job. That much was true in 2001, it was – before the mold breaking pick of Sven – becoming increasingly difficult to see where the next England manager would come from. Nevertheless the film tried to tell us that a hard drinking manager might end up naming his squad on the back of a fag packet, with Benson and Hedges then being in the starting line-up.
Anyway, the film did well enough for there to be a sequel of sorts. But from the lofty heights of England, Mike Bassett moves to fictional struggling team Wirral County. The article describes them as being in the third division – wot that? – and uses phrases like “the bum end of the football league”, but nevertheless this could be an interesting antidote to Footballers Wives. I would imagine we will see unscrupulous owner figures, these being much sexier (and potentially funnier) than a fan led consortium running the club. The jokes I would imagine will still revolve around Tomlinson being an unsuitable manager figure, and his problems in the job. Not such a satirical bent down there though, there is nothing funny about having an incompetant manager in a struggling club. I should know. Tony Cottee managed Barnet for six months.