The world of Dream Team, the popular drama in which the action revolves around a top football club, is one where fantasy and reality are closely entwined. A bit like a dream, in fact. For instance, Harchester United isn't just a fictional team. The actors who make up the squad play the occasional football match in the real world, and they're particularly proud of one pre - season game at The Valley.... A two - all draw against Celebrity XI with an unbeaten record, who they were beating 2 - 1 before conceding a last - minute equaliser. In the fictional world, the last series of Dream Team ended on an even more exciting cliffhanger. Needing a goal to avoid relegation from the Premier League, Harchester were awarded a last - minute penalty. As defender Didier Baptiste stepped up to make it, we knew (though his team mates didn't) that he'd been bribed to play badly by businessman Prash Dattani, who wanted the club to go down so he could buy it on cheap. And as the French - man struck the ball, the final credits rolled... you'll have to watch the first episode of the new series on 1st October to find out what happens next.
The production team aren't giving much away, but we do know a few things. Over the next few months, expect assorted high jinks involving Harchester's very own Becks and Posh (in the shape of new goalkeeper Jamie Parker and his model wife Natasha); more emphasis on the players' wives and girlfriends; and a battle for supremacy in the boardroom between Prash and chairwoman Lynda Block. Ramon Tikaram, best known for playing Fredy in This Life, will be back in the role of scheming Prash. As the man who played Judas in the last West End production of Jesus Christ Superstar, he's clearly comfortable with playing bad guys. "Yeah, it's always fun playing a villain," he says with a smile. "I love the fact that Prash is so conniving and nasty. It's a juicy role."
The programme also has a fresh format this season. With 26 one - hour episodes showing in a new Sunday evening slot. The aim, as producer Rod Brown explains, is to make it a show that will appeal to the whole family. "You don't have to know or love football, because the drama is about everyday people," he says. "They just happen to work at a football club. After all, you don't have to know everything about the oil business to enjoy Dallas." Brown has been involved with Dream Team from the beginning, and helped to develop the technical trickery that contributes so much to the show's realism. This involves "doctoring" genuine football matches and digitally colouring one team's shirts and shorts to match Harchester's purple strip . Specially written commentaries delivered by Sky Sports stalwarts Andy Gray and Richard Keys complete the effect. It's a pain staking process, talking an hour for every minute of finishing footage, but the end result is very convincing. "The principle is the same as in a James Bond film," Brown explains. "You see a stunt man fall off a cliff, when you go in for the close - up, there's Pierce Brosnan, and your brains tell you it was Brosnan who had the fall."
The technology means that the actor's don't get to play a lot of football on camera, but that doesn't mean they are allowed to slack off - far from it. "The majority of the supporting cast are part - time footballers," explains Andy Ansah, who plays Harchester's coach. "We make sure the new cast members are good enough to do what's asked of them. It's nigh - on impossible to look a good footballer on camera if you can't play very well." Ansah, a former professional best known for his stint at Southend United, is also in charge of football choreography and training. "What's great about this show is that we live like a professional football team: we train quite vigorously twice a week, the lads come back and they're breathing heavily. It all helps to make the show as real as possible."
The training is one of the things the actors enjoy most about the show, and some of the cast who aren't in the team join in as well. "I love getting involved, and I want to keep fit," says former Brookside regular Mark Moraghan, who plays Harchester boss Ray Wyatt. "Playing together helps us bond like a real football team." He speaks with some authority, since he knows Sunderland boss Peter Reid and Liverpool assistant - manager Phil Thompson personally. Indeed, he reckons that his portrayal of Wyatt is an amalgan of the two. All the actors agree that the training benefits their performance. "The camaraderie is good, because the lads are doing a lot of training off camera," says Ansah. Rod Brown adds: "If you record the banter in the dressing room between takes, you couldn't broadcast it - but it's an energy that transfers onto the pitch when they start filming."
As producer, Brown sees his role as being similar to that of a club manager. "The difference is that I know the score before the game!" he laughs. "That's the best thing about this job - working in football on a day - to - day basis without the pressures of having to produce results. But on a way, that's the down side as well: not having the adrenaline rush that comes from not knowing what's around the corner."
As for the actors, the attracting of Dream Team is obvious. "It's every young guy's dream to pretend he's a professional footballer," says Terry Kiely, aka Harchester veteran Karl Fletcher: New signing Paul Swinnerton (who plays captain Matt Conlon), sums it up: "To come to work and play football, do five - a - side games and all sorts of training, then do a bit of acting - well, you can't knock it, can you?"
Natalie Robb, plays the wife of United's new skipper from QPR, Matt (Paul Swinnerton), and mother of their two children, Emma and Jake. "I was a bit of a tomboy and I played first on goal, where I would have stayed, but my brother Darren was worried about how many times my face was getting hit by the ball!" Dream Team fans are unlikely to see the actress's soccer skills on display in the series though. The new hour-long episodes focus on the Harchester footballers' home lives as much as their professional ones. Natalie admits that her role in Dream Team has presented a very big acting challenge: "I can imagine what life as a footballer's wife might be like but as I've no children of my own yet, I have no idea what being a mum is like." So the former star of Scottish soap High Road took some acting advice from her friends who do have children. "They told me that they never take their eyes off their kids, that they are always aware of what they are doing. Which is why Lizzie tries never to lose sight of her two," she explains. "Although Lizzie is very 'touchy-feely' towards her children, she is also a tough cookie", says Natalie. On-screen, her character Lizzie is also the leader of Team Wives, an organisation made up of Harchester players' wives and girlfriends. And off-screen, Natalie is equally keen to organise the female cast members - into a women's football team to play charity matches. It would give the Celtic fan the opportunity to show off one of her talents. "When I was a kid, I used to be able to do 75 keepie-uppies - where you keep kicking the ball in the air without letting it bounce on the ground. I had not done this in years, so when we filmed scenes at Millwall FC in London I tried some keepie-uppies out on the pitch - I managed 25!"
Go Back