Pioneers: The Beautiful Game

"This is a big day for football."

Writer: Katharine Armitage

Format: Audio

Released: May 2023

Series: Ninth Doctor Adventures 9.03

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

Synopsis 

The Doctor decides to treat himself and attend the historic meeting which founds the football league. But he arrives a week early!

Instead, he must enlist the help of a hotel maid to battle an obsessive alien before it consumes everything that will ever be connected to the beautiful game...

Verdict  

The Beautiful Game was a decent story to conclude the Pioneers ninth series of Ninth Doctor Adventures! Whilst being an enjoyable episode, I felt slightly let down by how the birth of the Football League was used. I was super excited by the idea of the Doctor visiting the birth of football competition as we know it today and it was also terrific for the northern incarnation of the Doctor to be visiting Manchester at a time where the battle for football was very much in place. The perceived riches of the south wanted to keep the game amateur whilst the hard working people of the north needed it to become professional. I thought that was fun to explore and I really enjoyed the historical education on a subject I absolutely adore. I’ve actually written an essay at university on there not being enough space to play association football during the last decade of the Victorian era, and then my dissertations focused on the competition between association football and rugby in terms of popular from 1900-1950 across my Bachelors and Masters. So it’s safe to say this is a subject I know very well! I follow Wales everywhere (I’ve been to Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Qatar and Croatia in the last twelve months following the national team) and I’m a Cardiff City season ticket holder. Football is ingrained in my life so I was slightly disappointed by the villain here. The Strike didn’t feel right by name as it was obviously a link to the football theme but I wasn’t keen on the concept behind it needed to consume something it latched onto. Football was dangerous for that at this point in time given the importance of the formation of the Football League. Hearing William Sudell discuss the meeting that would establish the league and the points system was tremendous. I loved that he hadn’t even considered a draw! That was fun stuff. I enjoyed the ridiculousness of his sexist attitude but it was a timely reminder of the way women were seen in society at this time. The popularity of women’s football would lead to it being banned for half a century which is rather frightening, and he almost laughed off the idea of women entering the league. Daphne was the true pioneer in this episode in my opinion and the way she would contribute to the future of football was terrific. She was clearly a woman ahead of her time. She knew that even if women got the vote soon it wouldn’t be for women like her working in the kitchens, and amazingly she understood that this was her place. She didn’t like it but she embraced it and that was quite incredible. Daphne really was not afraid to challenge men and that was brilliant. She was certainly companion material and by the end she even knew that the Doctor was from the future! His comments about the future of women’s football were great and I liked that he felt Daphne could know. Her importance was established in the pre-titles with the Doctor earning the man of the match award in a space match after getting a late hat trick. The idea of Autons being substitutes was fun but I do wish football was taken a bit more seriously. The ending was predictable as the Strike was consuming too much and then the Doctor set it on canals. What could possibly go wrong there? It was a little underwhelming and I didn’t like that the Strike became the focus because of football being at threat, rather than exploring the origins of the Football League more. Overall, a decent adventure and a fun education!

Rating: 7/10