Rob Hughes wonders why so many football-related dramas fail to strike the right tone, especially in their action scenes

Lord knows they’ve tried. Ricky Tomlinson as England manager. Sean Bean tanking around in a Sheffield United strip. Sylvester Stallone between the sticks. Even Adam Faith as pint-sized proprietor of – oh yes – Leicester Forest (from a script by Jackie Collins, no less). All of them as inept, unconvincing and downright embarrassing as each other. So just why is it that films about football never work? Certainly not through lack of an audience. It’s a sport, lest we forget, adored by millions the world over, one with its own in-built dramatic arc. A ready-made fantasy in which slumdogs really can become superstars. Never mind Mike Bassett or Jimmy Grimble. Where’s our Raging Bull, our This Sporting Life? Even a Seabiscuit would do.

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An ex-Danish international turned Walsall into cup specialists in his one season as manager. Tom Lines recounts the tale

In the summer of 1997 an overweight man in his early 40s walked into the offices of the Tamworth Herald and asked to speak to the sports editor. He claimed to have played in a European Cup final and wanted advice on securing a job in local football. Accustomed to humouring eccentrics with tall tales to tell, the journalist listened patiently before sending him on his way.

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Carlisle United have spent two decades at either end of the table. Plenty of excitement but Roger Lytollis just longs for a little calm

Carlisle 1, Huddersfield 2. Disappointing, although no disgrace to be beaten by one of League One’s better teams. Back home I checked the league table. Carlisle had dropped one place to 12th. That may not seem unusual to most people, but to me it was remarkable. It’s been a while since my team floated in the calm waters of mid-table. Twenty-one years, to be precise.

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It was a record-breaking day for the home side but not one Grimsby fans would want to remember. Pete Green watched their local rivals deny them the three points desperately needed to help preserve League status

You can tell it’s a Lincolnshire derby day: there are five people in the pub instead of four. Alright, I’m exaggerating a bit, but as local rivalries go Grimsby against Lincoln is a fairly polite and respect­ful one all round. Though knots of giddy schoolboys do their best to keep the police busy, it’s the charity fundraising fixture between fans’ teams that typifies the tone. For most, out here on the far, featureless tangent of the Humber estuary, the football is as distant a distraction as the low tide that recedes a mile from Cleethorpes seafront.

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More football coverage doesn't necesarily mean any more information. Paul Ramon vents on a pet hate

Jerry Seinfeld has a joke on how it is amazing that the amount of news that happens every day always just exactly fits the newspaper. Suffice to say he doesn’t read the sport sections of the British press. While in the past decade or so the sport pages have multiplied, often even into their own pullout sections, the amount of news has unsurprisingly refused to follow suit. This leaves each day’s few notable events padded out by stories as irrelevant and disposable as an unofficial biography of a teenage pop star.

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