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Mike Bassett: England Manager

 Mike Bassett: England Manager
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Mike Bassett: England Manager
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MikeBassettEnglandManager
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A mockumentary released in 2001, based around the rather stressful job of the England national football manager. It was inspired by a real fly-on-the-wall documentary, An Impossible Job, which followed England manager Graham Taylor and England's ultimately unsuccessful bid to qualify for the 1994 World Cup.England manager Phil Cope has suffered a heart attack during England's stuttering campaign to qualify for the 2002 World Cup in Brazil. None of the English managers in the Premier League are interested in taking the job (well, one is, but the Football Association aren't interested in him). No high profile manager abroad wants the job, either.In desperation, the FA turn to Mike Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson), manager of second tier club Norwich City, and it soon becomes apparent that while Mike has all the enthusiasm in the world, he lacks the necessary managerial nous. England's qualifying campaign goes From Bad to Worse, and they're forced to rely on a flukish combination of results to get through to the World Cup itself. Things eventually get better once they arrive in Brazil, but not before they get a whole lot worse...The film was followed by a TV series, Mike Bassett: Manager, wherein Mike returns to take charge of his childhood heroes, Wirral County. Unfortunately it got stuck in development hell for four years due to money wrangles, meaning that it was released to a somewhat decent reception, but unimpressive viewing figures.A second film, Mike Bassett: Interim Manager was in development, but appears to have dropped into Development Hell following the failure of a Kickstarter campaign.
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No Celebrities Were Harmed
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No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mike Bassett supposedly has elements of all the worst aspects of English managers, though Graham Taylor and Kevin Keegan are apparently the main influences. Kevin "Tonka" Tonkinson is a gifted but mercurial playmaker from the North East, like Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne. He subsequently became a much more direct Expy in Manager. Gary Wackett is a very aggressive centre-half with a terrible disciplinary record, a nod to various British "hard man" footballers, such as Vinnie Jones, Stuart Pearce and Billy Bremner. His name is possibly a play on the name of another English centre-half, Gary Mabbutt. Harpsey is a playboy who is perennially talking on his mobile phone, has a popstar wife and is described as the best crosser in the world, like David Beckham. Dave Dodds and Lonnie Urquart are parodies of Graham Taylor's two assistants, Phil Neal and Lawrie McMenemy. The unnamed England goalie is physically very similar to David Seaman, right down to the ponytail. Carlton Dawes is a reference to Carlton Palmer, both in his name and his awkward personality.
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Heroic BSoD
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Heroic BSoD: Mike suffers a major one in the last episode of Manager, after it turns out that his father took a bribe to deliberately play poorly in Wirral County's one and only FA Cup final.
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Tempting Fate
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Tempting Fate: Mike proudly boasts that he's a traditional manager, and that he writes his squad list down on the back of packets of "Benson & Hedges" cigarettes. Come the next match, he finds out that he's got the 46 year-old Ron Benson and the 20-stone Tony Hedges as part of his squad.
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Genre Shift
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Genre Shift: England Manager was a mockumentary, while Manager followed the "Modern Britcom" format popularised by shows like Extras.
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The Cameo
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The Cameo: Lots. In England Manager, Pele, Ronaldo, Natasha Kaplinsky, Sue Barker, Dickie Bird, Keith Allen, Atomic Kitten, Gabby Logan and Barry Venison. In Manager, Jimmy Greaves and Jeff Stelling.
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Ironic Echo
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Ironic Echo: Mike tells Doddsy he won't sign Tonka again because their relationship is like the running gag in the Peanuts cartoons, where every week Lucy would convince Charlie to kick a football, then move the ball out of the way just as he was about to kick it, and Charlie would fall over. After Tonka joins Wirrall, he tells Mike to show the team his penalty-taking skills. Mike starts his run up, but just before he kicks the ball, Tonka whips it away with a piece of string and Mike lands in a heap.
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Dirty Old Man
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Dirty Old Man: Jack Marshall, the England physio, seems to take inordinate levels of care when inspecting the players' groins. At one point, he instructs a player with a wrist injury to take his underwear off. In a deleted scene, he also gleefully talks at length about how his job involves "rubbing young men's thighs."
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Unsettling Gender-Reveal
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Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Tonka gets one when he brings what he thinks is a woman back to his hotel room.
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Ax-Crazy
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Ax-Crazy: Gary "Whacko" Whackett, England captain, who's gotten sent off in nearly every game he's played. He's seen at the World Cup leading football hooligans against the Brazilian police.
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Cluster F-Bomb
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Cluster F-Bomb: Mike drops one that Gordon Ramsay would be proud of during a 4—0 thrashing of England by Mexico.
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Batman Gambit
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Batman Gambit: An agent pulls one on Mike, sending him a tape of a striker who is shown to score five goals in a single game. Mike quickly signs him for Wirral County, only to discover that he's actually signed the goalkeeper from the tape. An incompetent goalkeeper who can't speak English, and is knocked out by the regular goalkeeper within 30 seconds due to an argument.
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Rhetorical Question Blunder
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Rhetorical Question Blunder: After the disastrous first group match at the World Cup, Mike remonstrates with the England fans screaming abuse at the team, demanding to know if they actually have anything useful to say rather than just insults. He's thus caught off guard when said fans retort with several competent suggestions for player positions and pitch strategies.
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Captain Obvious
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Captain Obvious:
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I Take Offense to That Last One
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I Take Offense to That Last One: During an argument, Mike accuses Lonnie Urquart of being a useless, stupid, racist fool, who knowingly sells crappy cars. Guess which one of those insults offends Lonnie into punching Mike and quitting the England setup?
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Sequel Hook
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_6293c185
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Sequel Hook: Mike's "four more years" cry at the end of the film. Unfortunately, the next time we see him it turns out that he rather overestimated his future as England Manager. The TV series ends with Mike and Karine walking away together, leaving Doddsy as the new manager of Wirral County, until Mike mentions that he doesn't just want to retire in Spain, and wants to become part-time coach of a local junior team. Karine says that if he wants to do that, they might as well just stay with Wirral. The series ends on that note, and we never find out what happened next.
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Hair-Trigger Temper
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Hair-Trigger Temper: Wacko, who rarely gets through a game without being sent off and even threatens the documentary presenter.
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Gilligan Cut
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Gilligan Cut: Mike laughs off his wife's suggestion that he sign some players on loan for Wirral. In the next scene, he tells Dodds that he wants to bring in some loan players. There's another when Mike vows he will never sign Tonka again. Next, he's at a press conference announcing that he has signed Tonka.
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Cheaters Never Prosper
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Cheaters Never Prosper: Averted in the film, where England win a crucial match with Argentina thanks to a handball by Tonka. Then again, Argentina beat England under similar circumstances in 1986, so it can be argued that this was actually a very slow case of Laser-Guided Karma.
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In-Series Nickname
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In-Series Nickname: Most of the England players have a nickname, usually just a shortened version of their surname. Gary Wackett is "Wacko", Kevin Tonkinson is "Tonka" and Rufus Smalls is "Smallsy". Truth in Television as simplistic nicknames are common in English football.
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Put on a Bus
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Put on a Bus: Mike's son is reduced to only appearing very briefly in a single episode of the TV series. Justified, since he was in high school in England Manager, and had moved onto university during the six year gap until Manager.
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Bungled Hypnotism
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_7679475
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Bungled Hypnotism: Bassett brings in a hypnotist to help Carlton Dawes break his long goalless streak in Manager. In the next match, Dawes ends up scoring a hat-trick... of own goals. Subverted when the hypnotist later shows up demanding to know why he hasn't been paid, and Bassett instead has him hypnotise a businessman who intends to buy the club's ground and build a furniture store on it. This time it works as intended, causing the businessman to publicly insult the local residents, who chase him out of town. Mike and Doddsy are then hypnotised into paying double to the hypnotist, indicating that it wasn't so much as a case of the hypnotist being incompetent as Dawes just being that bad.
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Real Life Writes the Plot
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Real Life Writes the Plot: Atomic Kitten member Natasha Hamilton is mentioned as having been too ill to take part in the England team's official World Cup anthem — in real-life, she had just had her appendix removed prior to filming, and was in no condition to take part. Another incident affected the ending of the film. Normally Ricky Tomlinson has a full beard, but shaved it down to just a moustache for this film. The producers decided they wanted to reshoot the ending, but were faced with a problem since Tomlinson had regrown his beard. As a result, they put in a throwaway line alluding to Bassett having agreed with Doddsy not to shave until England got knocked out of the World Cup.
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Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_7fbb2a3
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Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the second-last episode of the TV series, Mike goes out on a stag night with Tonka, fearful that Tonka will get himself arrested or injured just before an important match. Mike gets so drunk that he ends up breaking Tonka's jaw in a punch-up, ruling him out for the entire season. The night before a crucial game against Liechtenstein, Tonka went out on a wild night of drinking and took the entire England defence with him. England failed to win by the match and Mike got the sack.
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What Happened to the Mouse?
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What Happened to the Mouse?: In-universe. One of the England defenders who went out on a wild bender with Tonka hasn't been seen since.
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As You Know
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As You Know: References to Mike's career between the film and the series are treated like this, particularly England's failed European Championship qualification campaign (and Tonka's role in it).
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Foreshadowing
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_9d12bbc1
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Foreshadowing: During Manager episode 6, Mike's first press conference includes what seems to be a joke about how unlikely it is that Wirral would stay up, Mike rattles off a list of increasingly outlandish events that would mean Wirral stay up, including Wirral drawing and Mansfield losing, York City being beaten by 10 goals and Scunthorpe having their match abandoned. In between these is if Wirral and Mansfield both lose, Wirral will stay up if Mansfield have lost by three more goals than Wirral. The final match has Wirral lose 2-0, but Mansfield lose by 6.
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Punctuated! For! Emphasis!
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Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
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Artistic License – Religion
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Artistic License – Religion: Nobody nowadays would self-identify as a "Fenian", and a Scotsman definitely would not. Historically the name of a 19th century Irish nationalist movement, today it is used only as a derogatory term, for Irish Republicans or for Catholics in general.
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Role Called
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Role Called
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Epic Fail
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_b4eff8a8
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Epic Fail: Mike's entire management career. Even his one shining moment with England can be argued to be more down to Alan Massey than Mike.
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Yes-Man
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Yes-Man: Doddsy takes this to ridiculous extremes in the film (though so did Phil Neal, his real-life counterpart). In the TV series he's a lot more self-assertive, though still pretty subservient to Mike.
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Really Gets Around
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Really Gets Around: Karine seems to have dated half of Leeds' 1970s side, including Peter Lorimer, Norman Hunter, David Harvey and Trevor Cherry.
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Alien Autopsy
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Alien Autopsy: Referenced. Mike's son, Jason Bassett, has a poster on his bedroom door designating the space an "Alien Life-Form Autopsy Room."
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Can't Hold His Liquor
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_c4b0faae
comment
Can't Hold His Liquor: Subverted in both the film and the TV series. Mike actually seems to have a pretty good level of alcohol tolerance; unfortunately this is undone by the side-effects of mixing alcohol with anti-depressants (in England Manager), and then by the fact that he has to drink all of Tonka's drinks on a stag night in order to keep him sober (in Manager).
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Shout-Out
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comment
Shout-Out: In the FA meeting at the start of the film, they mention a manager who is both English and successful, and actually wants the job. However, other members of the board describe him as mouthy and a "big head", and they quickly decide against hiring him. This is a reference to Brian "Ol' Big Head" Clough, who was passed over for the England manager's job in 1974, 1977 and 1982 because the FA deemed him too controversial and opinionated, despite his successes and being a popular choice among the public. They also discuss a highly successful Scottish manager, a reference to Alex Ferguson. Mike's meltdown during Manager, when he launches a kung-fu kick at someone in the crowd and then makes a rambling nonsensical speech at a press conference, is a nod to Eric Cantona's erratic behaviour as a Manchester United player in the mid-1990s.
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Next Sunday A.D.
 Mike Bassett: England Manager / int_ce68d46b
comment
Next Sunday A.D.: England Manager starts out at roughly the same time the film was released (in early-mid 2001) and ends a year later in the summer of 2002. More noticeable with Manager, which was first broadcast in late 2005, but is set in the course of the 2007—2008 football season.
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Cassandra Truth
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Cassandra Truth: When Tonka gets drunk, he says it's because his Thai wife was killed in a car crash after swerving to avoid a llama that had escaped from the local zoo. Mike thinks it's just another of Tonka's lame excuses, but it turns out to be true.
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Artistic License – Sports
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Artistic License – Sports: At the time the film was made it was known that the 2002 World Cup would be held in Japan and South Korea. Brazil had to wait until 2014 to stage a World Cup. The second World Cup group game is played on 19 June and the third one on 7 July, 18 days later. There is normally only three to five days between games at the tournament. The team fly home after losing the semifinal. In reality, they would have to stay for the third-place match.
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Very Loosely Based on a True Story
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Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film's setup is very similar to the situation the England national team found themselves in after Kevin Keegan stepped down in 2000. In fact, it was worse in real-life, because at the time there wasn't a single English manager in the Premier League who had won anything meaningful.
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Artistic License – Geography
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Artistic License – Geography: England's game against Mexico takes place in La Bombonera - which would be an almost criminal insult for a World Cup in Brazil, given that the stadium is in Argentina.
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Big Damn Heroes
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Big Damn Heroes: With England failing to win their final qualifying game against Slovenia, it looks bleak...and then Luxembourg beat Turkey to send England through. Wirral lose the last match of the season 2-0. But Mansfield had 6 put past them.
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The Alleged Car
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The Alleged Car: Every car that Lonnie Urquart sells, though the one he sells Mike is apparently particularly bad.
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Suspiciously Similar Substitute
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Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Richard Johnson in the TV series has almost exactly the same personality as Sir Geoffrey Lightfoot in the film. His role's a bit different though, as Sir Geoffrey was just uninterested in giving Mike any help or advice, while Richard was outright villainous and wanted to destroy the club to sell its stadium.
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Well-Intentioned Extremist
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Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mike's dad took a bribe to miss a penalty in Wirrall's only cup final in order to pay for an operation for Mike.
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Shown Their Work
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Shown Their Work: Say what you want about the film (and series), you can't accuse the writers of not knowing their football. Their geography, on the other hand...
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 Mike Bassett: England Manager
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 Mike Bassett England Manager
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Mike Bassett: England Manager
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Metagame / int_a2904f1a