Footballers' Wives

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Footballers' Wives

Format Drama
Run time 45 to 60 minutes
Creator(s) Maureen Chadwick,
Ann McManus
Starring Series 5 Cast:
Zöe Lucker,
Gillian Taylforth,
Ben Richards,
Helen Latham,
Sarah Barrand,
Nicholas Ball,
Craig Gallivan,
Phina Oruche,
Chucky Venice
Channel ITV1
Production company Shed Productions
Related shows Footballers' Wives: Extra Time
Air dates January 8, 2002 – April 13, 2006
No. of series 5
No. of episodes 42
IMDb profile

Footballers' Wives was a British television drama surrounding the private lives of a group of professional footballers. It was immensely popular because of its soap opera format. The show centred around the fictional Earls Park Football Club (nicknamed 'Sparks'). The Series was produced by Liz Lake, Claire Phillips and Cameron Roach. It was Executive Produced by Brian Park.

The show began as an ensemble of three different 'types' of football couple. However, from the third series on, the show more or less revolved around the character Tanya Turner.

Contents

[edit] Episodes

Series Number of episodes Length of episodes (no breaks) Length of episodes (with breaks
1 8 45 minutes 60 minutes
2 8 45 minutes 60 minutes
3 9 1 X 60 mins 8 X 45 mins 1 X 90 mins 8 X 60 Mins
4 9 2 X 60 mins 7 X 45 mins 2 X 90 mins 7 X 60 Mins
5 8 2 X 60 mins 6 X 45 mins 2 X 90 mins 6 X 60 Mins

[edit] Cast

[edit] Series 5 Cast

[edit] Old cast

[edit] Storyline Guides

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Series One - 2002

The series follows a group of footballers' wives whose husbands all play for the same team, Earls Park (nicknamed "Sparks"). Ian Warmsley, Sparks' latest signing, deals with his up-and-coming success. His wife Donna is more concerned with getting their son back from the woman who adopted him after her parents forced her to give him up when she was a mere teenager. Trouble crops up when their 8-year-old daughter is kidnapped from school in the final episode of the series.

Donna's younger sister Marie is staying with them, causing all the trouble she can. She has a secret fling with Sparks' mid-fielder and ruthless bad boy Jason Turner, who is married to the beautiful, yet vile, Tanya, TV's megabitch. Tanya is too busy to worry about the affair as she tries to save her husband's job when club owner Frank Laslett buys Italian stallion Sal Biagi, who takes Jason's job. Tanya and Jason take matters into their own hands on the way home from a club dinner, and in a drunken brawl, Tanya puts Frank into a coma. With the help of Jason, they push his car off the side of the road, making it look like a drunken accident.

Frank is in a coma, and it's Tanya's job to keep up appearances, trying to look like the innocent party whilst trying to befriend Nurse Dunkley, who is taking care of Frank. But looks can be deceiving, as Tanya walks in on Dunkley riding Frank's lifeless body. Tanya, who frequently visits Frank in hospital and is convinced he remembers what happened that night, surprises Nurse Dunkley when she walks in on the rape. Tanya keeps the information secret, but uses the information to manipulate Dunkley into switching off Frank's life support, telling her that she and Frank were having an affair, and that she can't bear to see him in pain.

With Frank's son convinced its for the best, Frank's family (plus Tanya and Dunkley) gather round as they bid farewell, but something goes wrong - Frank wakes up just before the switch-off goes ahead. Soon, Frank is on his feet again, convinced that he and Tanya are still an item. He lets Jason have his job back, and all is well again, apart from the affair. Jason isn't one bit happy about the fact his wife is shagging his boss, so he and Tanya hatch a plan to end the affair with the help of Hazel, a corrupt, fiery redhead and ruthless agent to the stars.

On the night of one of Tanya's and Frank's steamy rendezvous, Frank injures Tanya, who then locks herself away in the bathroom. Enter Jason, who sees what Frank has done to his wife and goes berserk. But one blow to Frank's head causes him to remember everything. Memories from the night he went into a coma come flooding back to Frank.

Meanwhile, things are far from perfect for Kyle and his wife Chardonnay. The soon-to-be-married couple's relationship goes downhill during page 3 pin-up Chardonnay's night out with the girls - some rowdy rival football hooligans set fire to her chest. Determined not to let this get in the way, they go ahead with their fairytale wedding, dwarves and all. They even get a phone call from the hospital, telling them that Chardonnay is pregnant. But the wrong woman received the call, and it is, in fact, Kyle's meddling mother Jackie who is pregnant. Jackie decides to give up her baby to a couple in need of their own: Kyle and Chardonnay. With a little convincing, Kyle soon warms up to the idea of having a son and agrees to the decision. But wait, who can the father be? Of course, it's Jason Turner.

[edit] Series Two - 2003

Series 2 kicks off with Tanya and Jason in court, lying in front of God. The whole English population are convinced Frank is deranged and that he tried to rape Tanya. Charges are dropped, and Tanya walks away scot-free. But behind the court case, Frank is still determined to bring her down. He hires a private detective to track down Nurse Dunkley, Frank's nurse who sexually abused him while he was in his coma. Tanya has already got her mitts on Dunkley. When she comes back for more money, Tanya hides her somewhere Frank will never find her...in an old nursing home that Tanya is doing community service in due to her cocaine possession. When Frank eventually tracks her down, he forces her to help him gather evidence that will make Tanya go down for sure. Over dinner with Tanya, Dunkley is kitted up in full spy gear, recording their conversation about Frank (who is listening in). Just as Tanya gives herself up, she catches Dunkley in the toilet. No one can foil Mrs. T, as Dunkley soon learns, and she is banished forever with a pocket full of Tanya's money.

Jackie has given birth to Jason's baby, still unknown to Kyle and Chardonnay, who are bringing newborn baby Paddy up as their own. Jackie is finding it harder than she thought, however, and can't bring herself to fully let go of her new son. When Kyle and Chardonnay ban mother Jackie from seeing "their" baby, she tells Jason she wants the baby back. Kyle then decides to do something about it. He steals back the baby, and all hell breaks loose. Jason promises to Jackie that he will leave Tanya to start a happy family with her, but when Paddy is taken to hospital and examined, the doctors find that Paddy is a girl...and a boy. Paddy's mixed-sex organs disgust Jason, who no longer wants anything to do with the little "freak." Jason confides this to Tanya, and tells all. Tanya takes him back, and they're both back on top, where they belong. But all is not what it seems.

Jason asks Tanya if she wants to renew their vows. She accepts, but on the night before their wedding, Chardonnay delivers Tanya the news that Jason is being unfaithful...again. Tanya promises not to let her down, telling Char that he will get his comeuppance. Tanya lets Jason think that the wedding is running smoothly, but as she's about to say "I do," she throws the ring across the room, commenting on the size of his manhood. And with that, Jason publicly punches Tanya. Jason sits on the rooftop, drunk and feeling sorry for himself, but as he slips and desperately grasps for a life-saving hold on the ledge, an unseen (by the audience) assailant hits his hands with a champagne bottle, causing Jason to fall to his death.

[edit] Series Three - 2004

Episode One: Newly married Tanya and Frank head off to Thailand to sign a new captain for Earls Park. Meanwhile, Kyle struggles to accept Chardonnay's death. Chardonnay is revealed as Jason's killer.

Episode Two: Tanya and Amber lock horns over Conrad with a spectacular fist-fight in the lounge. Shannon's physical flaws are showcased grandly by the paparazzi, and she realises that her face doesn't fit... literally. Unbeknownst to Harley, she goes in for plastic surgery. Jackie's black eye repays the increasingly out-of-control Kyle with damaged P.R.

Episode Three: Kyle lies in agony after breaking a bone during a rage in the locker room, and surveys the ruins of his footballing career in despair. His attractive physio Elaine becomes fed-up with his defeatist attitude. Meanwhile, Frank may be forced to sell Earls Park, else risk bankruptcy, and neither Tanya nor he want that outcome. Hazel and her backers would be all too happy to make it happen, however. Amber frets about her own self-worth and Conrad's constancy, even as he struggles (but only a bit) against his attraction to Tanya. Happy with her nose job, Shannon opts for the next step in self-improvement: breast implants. Frank's doctor tells him his faulty heart will allow him to live another six months, and no more. Noah, Kyle's second-string replacement, flirts with Conrad, who returns the attraction.

Episode Four: Shannon and Harley tie the knot in a star-studded ceremony that ends with a hot-air ride and unexpected landing in a wildlife reserve. Kyle and Elaine find their attraction to one another irresistible. Tanya comes up with a plan to get rid of Frank - and enlists little blue pills and her own body as weapons. Noah expresses his fondness for Conrad whilst on his knees.

Episode Five: Frank is baffled by his new found stamina. Amber's kidnap has made Conrad realise how much she means to him, but Tanya is wary of Amber's story. Frank scolds Harley and Shannon for the public perception of their wedding party irresponsibility, and puts them on the wagon. Harley is increasingly worried about Shannon's deepening love affair with press attention.

Episode Six: Tanya sets out to prove that Amber lied about her abduction. Conrad breaks up with Amber, who turns to black magic to attempt to exact her revenge. Kyle loses a fortune at the races, and finds it more difficult to tell Elaine and Jackie the truth.

Episode Seven: Kyle takes another step into the underworld when he discovers an illegal fight club. Amber, slipping in stardom and increasingly unbalanced, finds solace in maliciously stalking Tanya. With the help of a tanning bed, Amber gives her rival a chemical peel that won't soon be forgotten. Noah's advances are rejected by Conrad, who is looking for fun and not a boyfriend. Hazel orders Noah to stay in the closet after he's caught stealing a dirty magazine.

Episode Eight: Kyle arrives home bruised and battered after a night of bare-knuckle boxing. Shannon's obsession with self improvement via plastic surgery continues, and she encourages Darius to alter his own appearance for the better, much to his offence. Discovering that Conrad and Noah are still physically involved, Tanya schemes to out Noah at a team party with the use of a paid escort and a security camera. Amber rejects counselling for her depression and attempts suicide. Doctors inform Conrad that Amber is pregnant.

Episode Nine: Conrad breaks the news of Amber's pregnancy to Tanya, who finds that she, too, is in the family way... but Frank, cackling from beyond the grave (via videotape), informs her that it may well be his lasting revenge. The police arrest a disruptive, violent Kyle after Jackie and Elaine turn in an insurance claim and police report listing as stolen the autos he sold to help pay his staggering gambling debts. Jackie and Elaine are horrified to learn of his deceit, and also that his house is being repossessed. Harley is triumphant in being selected as Man of the Match for Earls Park's most important game of the year, but Shannon is too drunk to notice, and is unfairly painted in the tabloids as accepting Darius' unwanted advances at a nightclub. Noah is badly beaten by homophobic fans of the losing team.

[edit] Series Four - 2005

Tanya and Amber both had Conrad's babies; Tanya swapped the babies at birth to hide that hers might have been Frank's, but this backfired when Amber's son (Tanya's, really) was smothered to death by Amber's dog. When the swap was discovered, Conrad and Amber claimed their rightful baby back and banished Tanya abroad.

The footballers are involved in a rape scandal during a party in Spain where a girl, Katie, who slept with some of the team, was raped by one of the men after she was drugged. Club chairwoman Hazel pays off Katie to avoid a damaging trial.

Shannon and Harley have marriage problems and eventually split up. Darius turns out to be the rapist of Katie in Spain, and has a breakdown when she kidnaps him for revenge. Jackie Pascoe marries club manager Roger Webb, who signs his son Seb to the club. Seb tries to cause trouble by making it look as though he slept with Jackie, and is thrown out. Hazel leaves the club with her new girlfriend, a tennis player.

New characters Bruno and Lucy Milligan have a destructive marriage where Bruno tries to control her. Lucy meets a man on the internet and runs away with him. When Lucy leaves Bruno with Angelica, she runs into Giles's arms - but Giles isn't what Lucy thought he was. Giles drugs Lucy and forces an imaginary wedding with her, pretending to make the crash that Giles witnessed with his last wife. When Bruno found out about Lucy running to Giles, he traced their steps, followed by Conrad. When Bruno and Conrad arrive at Giles's house, they sneak in and split up. Bruno is secretly carrying a gun. Conrad runs around the corner where Bruno is. Bruno fires the gun at Conrad without knowing his identity. Bruno is shocked when he finds out what he had done to his best mate.

[edit] Series Five - 2006

Widowed Amber suspects that it was Bruno who shot Conrad, but can't prove it, so she seduces him and moves in with him, slowly trying to make him think he is losing his mind. Getting more desperate, Amber tries to poison and then shoot Bruno. In the struggle, she ended up shooting Roger Webb, who lost his sight. Amber was then sectioned and left the show.

Shannon, now divorced from Harley and feeling lonely, was delighted to hook up with new Earls Park signing Callum Watson. Shannon moved Callum in; however, his interfering mother came with him and caused havoc. New characters included Tremaine and Liberty, who married in Episode 5 in a Egyptian-themed, typically over-the-top wedding. Liberty, a top supermodel, was caught out by the press having a lesbian affair with her P.A. Urszula, and then was shamed by starring in a Japanese advert that made her out to be a cannibal. Tremaine, who had been in prison previously, had to control his temper at his wife's crazy exploits.

Tanya Turner-Laslett-Federico returned, once Amber was out of the way, and set about seducing the latest star of Earls Park, Paulo Bardoso. However, his lover, glamorous magazine editor Eva De Wolffe (Joan Collins), stood in the way. They had a few catfights before it was revealed Eva was actually Paulo's adoptive mother. Tanya's joy at snatching Paulo from Eva's clutches was short-lived; he was taken to a hospital after a breakdown, and she found herself penniless.

After Roger lost his sight, he met with a nasty accident down a lift shaft. It was caused by Garry Ryan, the club chairman, who wanted Roger out of the way. Tanya discovered evidence that proved his involvement and promised Roger's newly-made widow Jackie, who left the show to join son Kyle in Australia, that she would get revenge. However, as series five ended, Garry was offering Tanya some cocaine laced with poison, just as she was trying to come to a "settlement" with him over the tape recording that proved he caused Roger's death.

[edit] Cancelled

In May 2006, it was announced by Shed Productions and ITV that no further series of Footballers' Wives would be commissioned. Its cancellation had been blamed on falling ratings, particularly during fifth series where they frequently faced defeat for their timeslot from BBC One's Hotel Babylon during the first half of the series. Despite their comeback to win the competition against BBC One's The Family Man (Lead-in from Hotel Babylon), the figures did not reach expectations. [1] [2]

[edit] Sports relief special

On Saturday 15 July 2006 in the UK, the BBC aired a final mini-episode as part of Sport Relief, that was broadcast during the show at 11.30pm. It was only a comic six minute episode and it didn't tie anything up.

[edit] Cast

Find out more, here!

[edit] Plot

The champagne-and-chandelier packed action centres around Graham Norton, who plays the new star signing at Earls Park, and the ladies' efforts to get their claws into him. [3]

[edit] Trivia

How To Be A Footballer's Wife, a humorous guide to the series, was published in 2003.
Enlarge
How To Be A Footballer's Wife, a humorous guide to the series, was published in 2003.

Between the third and fourth series of Footballers' Wives, Zöe Lucker's character of Tanya Turner was convicted of possession of drugs and was sent to jail for six months. The company who produce the show, Shed Productions, also produce the show Bad Girls, which centres around a women's prison. For three episodes of Bad Girls, the character of Tanya Turner crossed over and was seen being her usual self and causing mischief for others in jail, including being arrested for poisoning inmates. Turner was eventually released when a series of events lead to the Governor forcing a criminal to confess to planting the drugs on her.

At the end of the fourth series, ITV2 aired the first episode of the spin-off series Footballers' Wives: Extra Time, which features Tanya's sister Anika, Bruno Milligan's twins, and a host of other characters. The first episode features a lot of characters from the mother show to introduce the new characters.

Many of the principal characters are thinly veiled caricatures of famous UK footballers, including Justin Fashanu and David Beckham, and their associated wives.

A number of celebrities have made cameo appearances in the series, appearing as themselves. They include: Sol Campbell, Peter Stringfellow, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Jordan, Antony Worrall Thompson, Peter Andre, Lionel Blair, David Seaman, Richard Madeley, Judy Finnigan, Teddy Sheringham,Calum Best and Rula Lenska.

[edit] Footballers Wives: Extra Time

With the success of Footballers Wives came the spinoff series, Footballers' Wives: Extra Time that began on ITV2 on 26 May 2005. It aired after Series Four of the original and several characters, including Bruno and Lucy Milligan, Seb Webb, Harley and Shannon Lawson, Katie Jones and Amber Gates, appeared on the series. The first series features the sister of Tanya Turner, Anika Beevor. Series Two debuted on 23 February 2006 with stars Peter Ash as Darius Fry and Julie Legrand as Janette Dunkley from the original series as regular cast members. Nicholas Ball who portrayed Garry Ryan in the series crossed over to Footballers' Wives for Series 5 as the new Chairman of Earl's Park Football Club. The series was Executive Produced by Cameron Roach.

[edit] Foreign Audience

Footballers Wives currently airs in New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland, Israel, Australia, Canada, France, Netherlands, Finland, South Africa, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia.

It began in the United States in the summer of 2005 on BBC America. The channel has aired series 1-4, with 5 expected early 2007.

The show also airs in Ireland on TV3 Ireland, however, many Irish viewers receive UTV (subsidiary of ITV) and also watch it on that channel. Often, the same episodes air at the same time.

In Germany, RTL made an attempt in 2005 to recreate the look and feel of the show with an adapted version, called 'DAS GEHEIME LEBEN DER SPIELERFRAUEN' (The Secret Life Of Footballers' Wives) [4]. The original scripts were rewritten to appeal to a German audience. The show failed terribly and was cancelled after only 4 episodes had aired.

In Slovenia is airing on Kanal A as Žene nogometašev.

The show is received in various parts of Asia (for example Singapore) under the cable channel BBC Entertainment.

[edit] DVD Release

Series 1-5 have been released on DVD in the United Kingdom. Series 1-5 have been released on DVD in Australia. Series 1-3 have also been released in the United States. Series 1 of Footballers' Wives: Extra Time has been released in the UK and Australia.

DVD release dates in the UK.

Cover Series Release Date in UK # of Discs # of Episodes
The Complete First series January 27, 2003 3 8
The Complete Second Series February 9, 2004 3 8
The Complete Third Series April 25, 2005 3 9
The Complete Fourth Series March 20, 2006 3 9
The Complete Fifth Series October 9, 2006 2 8
Footballers' Wives: Extra Time - The Complete First Series July 3, 2006 2 12
Footballers' Wives: Extra Time - The Complete second Series TBA TBA 13

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../f/o/o/Footballers%27_Wives_366f.html"
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