Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Sean Rigby, Julian Moore-Cook, Gabriel Tierney, Caroline O’Neil, Mia McCallum, Angus Yellowlees, Andrew Havill, Harriet Thorpe, James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Anton Lesser, John Hollingworth, Joseph Millson, Eleanor Fanyinka, Elliot Levey, Sara Vickers, Roxanne Palmer, Lewis MacLeod, Ruth Bradley, Jacinta Mulcahy, Killian Coyle, Colum Convey, Evalina Järrebring, Tom Spink.

‘It’s a man’s game’, so they once said with pride as a tackle that could break a player’s leg came sliding in; the same type of game that seemed to take place in a war, choose a side, don’t upset the colours, do not betray the home support by doing something good for the other side, even if it is with the best intentions; for the penalty for such treachery is more than just being slapped with a fine, working with the reserves for a period of time until your attitude changes, it could be the death sentence that is handed out.

The 1970s saw a marked escalation in the undeclared war between the Provisional and other factions of the IRA, and the other side of the Irish nationalist coin wasn’t averse to playing the same long game when it came to dealing out retribution against those that they believed deserved a special kind of instant justice.

Television has never shied away from exposing the ‘Troubles’, even if it rarely calls it what it was, a war that has stretched back centuries, the rights and wrongs of the argument still as poignant today as they were in the 60s and beyond to the time of the declaration of independence, and the damage, the total betrayal of Irish people as the British Government allowed the citizens to starve in the Great Hunger.

To have a high brow detective series such as Endeavour take on the subject, whilst painting around a football team and the jealousies that are captured within, is perhaps unusual, but not unwelcome, and as the first episode of the eighth series of the popular show, Striker, played out, the intricate nature of combining football and politics has perhaps never been explained in a finer, more intriguing way.

The capturing of subtly is one that can be overlooked in a period drama, of any era that has its modern audience looking back at different attitudes and cajoling them to remember what their opinions were at the time, but as Striker shows, history is there to be examined, it neither asks you to like it or dislike it, but to be objective in your reasoning with the benefit of the unbiased and impartiality. This particular episode; one that understands the fine line between opinion and judgement, manages to frame the complex story line, and even with his time taken up by being the director of Russell Lewis’ story, Shaun Evans puts in a magnificent display as the often out of common touch detective.

With excellent performances from the redoubtable Roger Allam as Detective Chief Inspector Thursday, Sean Rigby in particular good form as Jim Strange, and Joseph Millson as the shady Robert Fenner, the weaved tale of academia, social sport and politics came bursting out the blocks and provided Sunday evening with the injection of mystery it needed.

Ian D. Hall