Screengrab: YouTube
Here go Jossy's Giants /
Football's just a branch of science /
Head the ball now, Jossy calls /
Jossy's Giants!In 1986, British children's television was graced by one of the most iconic football shows of all time. While the nineties would produce such utter dross as Renford Rejects and Hurricanes, the former an extremely annoying programme on Nickelodeon and the latter a show which featured characters almost entirely based on national and ethnic stereotypes, the eighties gave us the pinnacle of children's football programming in the form of Jossy's Giants. The show centres on waggish Geordie Jossy Blair, a former Newcastle United prospect who, having seen his own career cut short by injury, is convinced to manage a local youth side called the Glipton Grasshoppers, who are basically shite. Nonetheless, with a bit of elbow grease, a change of attitude and plenty of cheeky Geordie humour, he turns them into a respectable side with a bright future in the beautiful game.Filmed in and around Stalybridge with the cast drawn from local Sunday league boys' teams, Jossy's Giantsis perhaps the most conceptually mundane programme ever made in Britain. Indeed, it is so humdrum, so utterly run-of-the-mill, that after watching several episodes it conversely starts to feel like something sublime. Jossy's Giantsis a work of art, a show so ordinary that it ought to be considered a masterpiece of unadulterated realism. Written by Sid Waddell, otherwise known as the 'Voice of Darts', it is the football fever dream of a middle-aged sports commentator from Northumberland, and a condensed amalgamation of everything British that is also notionally working class.Read the rest of this article on VICE Sports.
Football's just a branch of science /
Head the ball now, Jossy calls /
Jossy's Giants!In 1986, British children's television was graced by one of the most iconic football shows of all time. While the nineties would produce such utter dross as Renford Rejects and Hurricanes, the former an extremely annoying programme on Nickelodeon and the latter a show which featured characters almost entirely based on national and ethnic stereotypes, the eighties gave us the pinnacle of children's football programming in the form of Jossy's Giants. The show centres on waggish Geordie Jossy Blair, a former Newcastle United prospect who, having seen his own career cut short by injury, is convinced to manage a local youth side called the Glipton Grasshoppers, who are basically shite. Nonetheless, with a bit of elbow grease, a change of attitude and plenty of cheeky Geordie humour, he turns them into a respectable side with a bright future in the beautiful game.Filmed in and around Stalybridge with the cast drawn from local Sunday league boys' teams, Jossy's Giantsis perhaps the most conceptually mundane programme ever made in Britain. Indeed, it is so humdrum, so utterly run-of-the-mill, that after watching several episodes it conversely starts to feel like something sublime. Jossy's Giantsis a work of art, a show so ordinary that it ought to be considered a masterpiece of unadulterated realism. Written by Sid Waddell, otherwise known as the 'Voice of Darts', it is the football fever dream of a middle-aged sports commentator from Northumberland, and a condensed amalgamation of everything British that is also notionally working class.Read the rest of this article on VICE Sports.