The Manageress

Very good drama series that gave some good food for thought during a gloomy period for football back in the late 1980s.

A good plot involving a women manager of an unnamed lower division football team played by the excellent Cherie Lunghi.

She has many challenges to face with problematic players , a drippy husband and the irascible chairman played really well by Warren Clarke.

The stories are simplistic however I watched them again recently and there are some very good observations on pay per view football and out of town stadiums , something not commonplace back then.

The football match scenes are some of the best I have seen and you have to pinch yourself this club doesn't exist they are so realistic.

This was a great series and well worth a watch all these years later if you can acquire it.

Cheri Lunghi excels in a custom-written part as the first woman in Britain to ever become manager (head coach) of a professional soccer team. The part makes excellent use of Lunghi's own part-Italian heritage and she gives a classy, 100% committed performance on the field and off.

The plot covers all aspects of the life of a football club from corruption, professional sleaze,personal sleaze, cover-ups and more but there are some excellent moments of humour. Many of these aspects are still very much with us now.

There are also great supporting performances from Warren Clarke as the wheeler-dealer chairman of the club and the ever-reliable Tom Georgeson as the coach denied his shot at big-time management by the arrival of the unprecedented newcomer.