‘Living The Dream’
This season sees the last ever series of Sky One’s football drama ‘Dream Team.’ Since the show’s premiere on Tuesday 7th October 1997, Dream Team has won many followers.
Harchester United’s final season at the Dragons Lair is currently being played out on Sky One, every Sunday night at 9pm.
The last ten years has seen The Dragons go through several periods of success and also tragedies. Two F.A Cups have been added to the trophy cabinet, and many top international superstars, such as record £28million transfer from Barcelona, Luke Davenport, have pulled on the purple of Harchester United.
Several characters have come and gone, with many being killed off in the regular end of season cull. These have included plane crashes, bus crashes, shootings and suicides.
One member of the cast, Alison King, who plays chief executive Lynda Block, has seen Dream Team evolve profoundly over the last ten years of its existence for which she has been at the Dragons Lair throughout, albeit in differing capacities.
Set at Millwall FC’s New Den ground for the last eight series, Dream Team has gone from a small time television drama to a programme that occupies a prime time slot, which speaks volumes about its popularity.
However, the last four years have been described by Jane Hewland, the programme’s creator and executive producer as a “terrible strain, due to the low budgets available for the show.” Ms Hewland revealed that the drama survives off a small budget of “£150,000 per hour, which is almost half of its terrestrial counterparts.”
Dream Team has inspired several other football based programmes, with the obvious one being ITV’s flagship production, Footballer’s Wives. However, unlike Footballer’s Wives, Dream Team always made a point of focusing on the football side of things with the relationships and off-field distractions playing a lesser role.
This season’s series, which will complete over 400 episodes of Dream Team, will come to its conclusion in May 2007, leaving behind many fond memories for fans, and also for it’s cast, who can all say that they had the chance to live the dream.