After 18 years away, a TV institution has made its grand return this autumn – for new hosts Elis James and Matt Lucas, it’s become almost a pagan experience...
Luciano Pavarotti at Nottingham Forest, Lee Trundle crooning to the Pet Shop Boys, and a stuffed cat pretending to be Lee Cattermole – it must be Fantasy Football League.
On a Thursday evening at the end of September, a cult TV show returned to the screen with typical irreverence. David Baddiel and Frank Skinner may have gone, but a near-identical format to the ’90s original offered up a large dose of nostalgia to a generation of fans, one which new hosts Elis James and Matt Lucas were very much part of.
“I loved the original show,” Lucas – committed Gooner, and co-host of the Great British Bake Off – tells FFT now. “When I got a call from my agent asking if I would be interested in co-hosting a reboot of Fantasy Football League I thought, ‘Gosh, I already get paid to eat cake, now I get paid to watch football’. I was just like, ‘Yes’ – there was no doubt. If I’d heard someone else was doing it instead, I’d have been thinking, ‘I’ll watch that, but I’m jealous as hell’.”
Co-host James, who’d never met Lucas before they became firm friends on this project, is in full agreement.
“I got the phone call and I thought, ‘Hmm… a show I used to tape off the telly, which was one of the most formative experiences of my life as a comedian? Yes, I think I would want to do that actually!’” smiles the lifelong Swansea fan, who was 13 when the original show began in 1994.
“Walking on to the set for the first time was a really evocative moment, a bit like when you go to Stonehenge for the first time. You’ve seen it so much, but nothing prepares you for actually seeing it in real life. The set is so faithful to the original, but with more Swansea and Arsenal stuff, instead of Chelsea and West Brom.”
Lucas smiles and interjects. “At first, there was a Tottenham pennant in my eye line,” he laughs. “I used my star power, I had that moved.”
Baddiel and Skinner hosted Fantasy Football to much acclaim – and in ex-Nottingham Forest striker Jason Lee’s case, some occasional line-crossing – over the course of 10 years. The show ran regularly on the BBC until 1996, before returning for special ITV series during the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2004. The duo have long been adamant they didn’t want to return to the show, but publicly gave their blessing for it to come back under the stewardship of James and Lucas, on the Sky Max channel.
