YMMV / Mike Bassett: England Manager

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Wirral County are mentioned as being the less successful rivals of Chester City, and despite the efforts of a corrupt chief executive, narrowly survive the 2007—08 season at the expense of Mansfield Town. In real-life, Chester City survived the same season also at the expense of Mansfield Town... only to get relegated the following year, before going out of business altogether in 2010 thanks to the actions of their corrupt owner. If you assume that the series' talent for predicting the future works both ways, then Mike only succeeded in postponing the demise of Wirral County by two years.
  • In the film, Scotland receive much mockery for their habit of getting to World Cups and then going out in the first round. In real-life, not only did Scotland not qualify for the 2002 World Cup, they wouldn't even come close to qualifying for a major international tournament for the better part of two decades, and most of their fans would probably have be glad to go back to the days of actually getting to tournaments even if they don't make any progress there. It wasn't until 2020 when they finally managed to qualify for another tournament, namely the European Championships, in a group that also contained England, with Scotland finishing last, thus going out in the first round.
  • The England physio is depicted as being a pervert who insists on inspecting the players' groins even when the injury is clearly somewhere else, and in a deleted scene talks gleefully at length about how his job involves "rubbing young men's thighs." This takes on a much darker tone following the revelations in 2016 about sexual abuse of young players having been a serious problem in English football around the time the film was made (and going back several decades).
  • When Atomic Kitten appear, Natasha isn't there because she has food poisoning. This would become eerily prophetic of the group's third album - where Natasha would be infamous for no-showing various promotional events and would even miss a whole show after a fight with the other two.
  • Martin Bashir's prominent role As Himself in England Manager, considering that two decades after the film's release, it transpired that he had used misinformation to get Princess Diana to take part in an interview that, fairly or otherwise, many now blame for setting off a series of Disaster Dominoes that would result in her death in 1997. This can leave the viewer with an uncomfortable feeling that they're watching events that have somehow been manipulated — especially if they've seen the film's spiritual forerunner, Bostock's Cup, which likewise is mostly a mockumentary about how a usually-unsuccessful football team unexpectedly enjoyed a successful cup run, only for the whole thing to turn out in the end to have been rigged by the corrupt journalist who produced and presented the in-universe documentary.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The series has a bizarre knack for predicting the future:
  • In England Manager, England progress through the group stages of the 2002 World Cup thanks to a controversial 1-0 win over Argentina, then progress to the semi-finals where they get knocked out by Brazil, who go on to win the World Cup. All of this actually happened (albeit with England's elimination by Brazil occurring in the quarter-finals) in the real 2002 World Cup, which took place a year after the film's release.
  • Then in Manager, Mansfield Town get relegated from the Football League at the end of the 2007—08 season. Guess what happened in the actual 2007—08 season?
  • Rufus Smalls in the film was mentioned as being an extremely popular striker whose reputation went down the tubes after he skied a penalty in a penalty shoot-out in the quarter-finals of the European Championships against Portugal. Fast forward to 2004, and David Beckham's reputation takes a major (albeit fairly short lasting) knock when he has a critical penalty against Portugal in the quarter-finals of the European Championships, and kicked it into Row Z.
  • We find out that Bassett lasted one year after the film as England Manager, after failing to qualify for Euro 2004. England failed to qualify for the real life Euro 2008, cutting short the career of manager Steve McClaren after just a year. Moreover, Bassett got Newcastle United relegated after managing England, which McClaren also proceeded to do.
  • One early scene has Bassett playing in goal for Crewe Alexandra and conceding a goal when he fails to connect with a backpass. In 2006, England goalkeeper Paul Robinson conceded a goal in a Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia in near-identical fashion.
  • Averted in one sense when the actual next World Cup to take place in Brazil rolled around in 2014; England completely bombed at the tournament and went out in the first round, the only thing in common with Bassett's team being that one of the results was a turgid 0-0 draw. Played straight in another, very odd sense however; in the film, Alan Massey taunts the Scotland squad by saying "Costa Rica are looking tasty this year." At the 2014 World Cup, Costa Rica proved to be the dark horses of the tournament, getting through to the quarter-finals and beating several more fancied teams in the process.
  • The David Beckham parody in England Manager is named Steve Harper. The Beckhams later had a daughter and named her Harper.
  • In the film, England sneak into the World Cup via the back door after Luxembourg beat Turkey. Fast forward to the 2022 UEFA Nations League, and Luxembourg came extremely close to beating Turkiye, leading 3 times in a 3-3 draw.
  • The film has an unfancied manager with a mostly unsuccessful club managerial record take over the England manager's job largely for the lack of any better candidate, only to vastly exceed expectations by taking them to the semi-finals of the World Cup. This would happen in real-life when Gareth Southgate took over as England manager in 2016, and got them to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
• Retroactive Recognition: Vocal example. Lily Allen filled in for Natasha Hamilton on the Atomic Kitten song.
• Spiritual Successor: To Bostock's Cup, a 1999 TV movie which likewise had a mockumentary format, centred around an old-school manager and his Yes-Man assistant who steer a historically unsuccessful team to cup success (albeit they actually win it, whereas England "only" reach the semi-finals of the World Cup here; said assistant also shares the England physio's perversions), with said team being made up of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits including a violent captain with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a player who has a pop star wife, and the manager giving a half-time talk which is almost entirely bleeped out. Manager would later re-use another element from Bostock's Cup, namely hiring a hypnotist to help the team's prospects (albeit Bostock's Cup does so by having him hypnotize the other team, which actually works).
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • England Manager can appear somewhat dated to modern audiences, as a result of the film quality, the footballers parodied (nearly all of whom had retired by the early-mid 2010s), the presence of Atomic Kitten (who were active from 1999-2004), plus the storyline being a very specific parody of the circumstances surrounding Kevin Keegan's resignation as England manager in 2000. It helps that the characters are all pretty typical football archetypes such as a striker who can't score, a hard as nails psychopath, a pretty boy attacking player, an uncultured four-four-two or bust manager who gives the team a bollocking when losing, and media writers who can't find a single positive thing to say about their team ever, plus the frantic search for a new England manager is something that usually happens every three to five years,^note (In fact, the original script parodied the circumstances of Graham Taylor's resignation as England manager in 1993 — Doddsy and Lonnie Urquart, who respectively parody Taylor's assistants Phil Neal and Lawrie McMenemy, are the main remnants from this draft — and it was rewritten and updated when Keegan resigned just before the start of filming) so familiarity with the specific sources isn't quite necessary.
  • It's less of a problem for Manager, oddly enough, which mostly references and parodies footballers who played from around the 1950s to the 1970s. The only way this really applies to the series is with the frequent references to Wirral County's main rivals being Chester City, who went out of business less than five years after the series was broadcast — though even this isn't quite as bad as it could have been, seeing how City were immediately reformed as a new club, Chester F.C.

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