Big Ron tackles dream acting role `for fun'

"Just be yourself, say what you've said at least once a day to every chairman you've ever worked for - no acting required," the director of Dream Team probably advised Big Ron Atkinson before shooting a scene for the first episode of Sky One's new football soap opera. "Right," Ron probably replied.

Action! "I told you at the start of the season, these lads just aren't good enough - get your hand in your pocket chairman, or WE'RE GOING DOWN," the Harchester United manager (Big Ron) howled at his chairman, before storming out of the office. "How was that?" Ron probably asked the director. "Perfect - you're a natural," he probably replied.

So much for Sky's promise that Big Ron would be ACTING in Dream Team. Harchester United? Struggling team stuck in the relegation zone? Overpaid stars not pulling their weight? Chairman almost bankrupt from lashing out millions on useless players? Sound familiar? No method acting required here, no need for months of research in to the relationship between struggling managers and fed-up chairmen - they just hired Ron and asked him to act naturally. And he did, `to be fair', as he often says himself. Stereotyped in his very first acting role.

Sky has commissioned 64 episodes of Dream Team, their first serious attempt to produce `home-grown drama', but much of the opening episode shown last Tuesday, doubled up as a glossy advertisement for Sky Sports. "Youth team captain Dean Hocknell makes his debut LIVE on Sky Sports . . . Harchester United meet Chelsea tonight in their biggest game of the season, LIVE on Sky Sports!" All of which left the viewer thinking there must be some kind of link between Sky One and Sky Sports, but maybe that's a bit cynical.

The Big question is - will Big Ron make it to episode three (tomorrow)? Having tragically missed episode two on Wednesday, one lives in fear for Big Ron's future at Harchester. Just as he is blossoming as an actor, will his thespian career be nipped in the bud?

"Okay lads, get yerselves right for it - let's go out and give them plenty," he said, with great feeling, as he sent his Harchester lads in to battle against Chelsea. They lost, of course, but with a team that included Banks, McNeill, Greaves, Law, Best, Muller, Charlton and Stiles (with Rossi and Jennings as subs) - average age 57 - they could hardly be expected to challenge Ruud Gullit's relatively-youthful eleven. (Big Ron was always accused of allowing Manchester United's youth team set-up to disintegrate during his time at Old Trafford but, to be fair, he stopped short of recalling Charlton, Law and Best).

Harchester, incidentally, are Leicester City turned purple. And their home ground, Addison Road, is Filbert Street . . . turned purple. Clever computer wizardry transformed Martin O'Neill's lads in to Big Ron's boys, but, presumably, we weren't meant to spot Leicester defender Steve Walsh at the bottom left corner of our screen at the end of the Harchester v Chelsea match (anoraks of the world unite). In case you had the misfortune to miss it, the synopsis of episode one goes something like this . . . Dean Hocknell has a bright future at Harchester United, but his younger brother Sean hasn't. Youth team coach Frank Patcham, whose daughter Lucy is Dean's long-time girlfriend, has told Sean that he'll never be the player Dean is unless he pulls himself together. Meanwhile, Big Ron is under pressure from chairman Michael Jacobs, whose daughter Georgina fancies Dean, but not Sean, because he's just made it in to the first team. Georgina (Posh Spice?) meets Dean (David Beckham?) in a night club, where he is celebrating scoring on his first-team debut - she lures him back to the boardroom and, well, you know yourself. Back at the nightclub, Lucy arrives only to be told by Sean that Dean was so tired he had to go home. Lucy is gutted. Dean will be too when she finds out what he's been up to. Great stuff. Thanks to Dream Team the winter will fly by. If Dream Team was fictitious True Lives: Football, Faith and Flutes, a two-year-old Channel Four documentary shown on RTE1 last Monday night, sadly wasn't . . . or was it? Celtic and Rangers were none-too-pleased with the portrayal of their supporters in the film, a study of `religious belief and sectarianism in Scotland', which, Celtic chairman Fergus McCann claimed, was "a gross caricature of their extremist attitudes".

"We're all one, it's the same God," argued one Celtic fan. "Bullshit man, we ****ing hate the bastards," responded his pals, who had yet to be fired by the spirit of ecumenism.

"The majority of them call themselves Protestants because it seems to be the opposite of Catholic, but they're not Protestants - all they are are atheists," said `Paddy', whose walls were festooned with pictures of the Last Supper (with a Celtic scarf draped over it) and the Pope. Meanwhile, "I wouldn't say I was a bigot, I'm somebody who believes in my culture, this is our country - we don't ask them to be here, but they're here and while they're in our country, they should abide by our laws," said `Sam', whose walls were festooned with pictures of King Billy (with a Rangers scarf draped over it) and the Queen.

"I despise Republicanism and I despise Celtic for it, it's an evil, it's a cancer, it should be cut out," said Sam, and it appeared he was prepared to do the cutting, as he displayed the UVF tattoo inside his lower lip. (It appears the more painful the spot you have `UVF' tattooed the more `Loyal' you are).

"It's just ignorance, I don't know why they keep slagging the Pope - what's the Pope ever done to them?" "The Pope is a dictator, he sits in Rome telling his priests what to do, he has nae got a clue what's happening in the east end of Glasgow, places like Easterhouse." And so it went on.

Paddy and Sam's utterances might have been mildly amusing if it wasn't for the fact that the first showing of the documentary two years ago came around the time a 16-year-old Celtic fan had his throat cut by a Rangers supporter on the streets of Glasgow . . . because he happened to be walking through the wrong part of town.