Renford Rejects

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Renford Rejects
Renford Rejects title card (later series)
Genre	Situation comedy
Starring	Matthew Leitch Martin Delaney Paul Parris Charlie Rolland Roger Davies Alex Norton Holly Davidson Adam Dean Bill Homewood Tom Weller Lucy Punch Megan Bertie Mohammed George
Theme music composer	Nicky Wire
Opening theme	Australia
Ending theme	Australia
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	52 (List of episodes)
Production
Location	United Kingdom
Camera setup	Single camera
Running time	22-26 minutes approx.
Broadcast
Original channel	Nickelodeon
Original run	23 February 1998 – 28 March 2001
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Renford Rejects was a teen sitcom produced and broadcast by Nickelodeon UK between 1998 and 2001.

The show concerned a five-a-side school football team, made up of aspiring players who had been turned down by their school's main team. They were named "Renford Rejects" when a rival player sabotaged their league entry form, but decided to stick with the name as it suited their "outcast" nature.

The regular cast, as is often the case with teen sitcoms, went through a number of changes as its four series went by; however, characters who remained throughout the run included :

Jason Summerbee (Martin Delaney) - The team's captain, an average working-class teen who in his head was a genius player destined for the top.
"Bruno Di Gradi" (Paul Parris) - Real name Barry Grade, he believed he was an Azzuri superstar, and so constantly spoke in an Italian accent despite really being British.
Ben Phillips (Charlie Rolland) - The poetry-loving, bespectacled goalkeeper. Ben was noted for playing in a variety of Philosophy Football shirts.
Vinnie Rodrigues (Roger Davies) - Just as the Renford players fantasised about being great footballers, Vinnie fantasised about being a famous commentator and anchorman. He frequently presented to-camera reports on the team, and in his fantasies famous presenters such as Jim Rosenthal often appeared as his co-anchor.
Eddie McAvoy (Alex Norton) - Owner of the local cafe "Graceland", and a fanatical Elvis fan, Eddie often helped out the team, and even coached them later in the series. A running gag was that his wife Priscilla (the implication being that, as an Elvis fan, he had married her for her name) could always be heard, but her face never seen.
Basil and Terry Stoker - The Rejects' fiercest enemies. Basil (Bill Homewood) was the school's football coach and had been responsible for not picking the Rejects players for his team; his dimwitted son Terry (Tom Weller), meanwhile, played for rival team the Razors, whom Basil also coached. Terry was also responsible for giving the Rejects their name.

In the first two series, the team were coached by Stewart Jackson (Matthew Leitch), an upper-class older boy who had been the school team's star player until an injury (caused by Terry Stoker) prevented him from playing. By the third series, however, he had recovered from his injury and joined as a player. He left in the 40th episode.

For the first two series, Ronnie Supra (Adam Dean) was the fifth player. He was recognisable as always wearing the latest fashions, always combing his hair on the pitch during games and being the son of the sponsor for the team's strips - his father's firm 'Supra Drain', in which was said that Ronnie would someday work. After series two, Ronnie left the Rejects to start his own Agency, and would appear in one episode of series three to help the Rejects when their local pitch was under threat of having houses built on it.

In series four, Stewart was replaced by Dennis Quayle (Mohammed George), who became the player/manager, and who successfully trained the Rejects to qualify for the European Beach Football Championships.

During each of the series, the rejects had a girl playing for their team. The first, and most notable, was Robin Walker (played by Holly Davidson), who was also by far the team's most skilful player, but joined the Rejects due to not being allowed to play for the school team. Davidson left to further her acting career at the end of the first series (Robin was written out by leaving the Rejects to play for the Chelsea ladies' team), and her replacement Sue White (Lucy Punch) was not a particularly popular character. However, her lack of footballing ability was more in keeping with the rest of the Rejects team, as was that of her own replacement Mia Smith (Megan Bertie), who outlasted her predecessors by staying for the third and fourth series.

A number of famous guest stars from the world of football appeared as themselves throughout the course of the series. These included Ian Rush, Gianfranco Zola, Martin Keown, Shaka Hislop, Roberto di Matteo and various members of England's 1966 World Cup-winning team.

As with many similarly-themed series, Renford Rejects used a popular contemporary indie song as its theme tune - in this case, "Australia" by the Manic Street Preachers.

The series is currently being repeated daily on Nickelodeon UK.