Interactive football show gets C4 nod

The trend to graft interactive reality on to football programming continues, after the UK's Channel 4 greenlit a new show from independent Lion Television called You're the Manager.

The experimental six-part series involves the Nationwide Conference League football club Stevenage Borough FC allowing its fans to vote on the team line-up.

After each match a panel of fans nominates three players to be dropped from the squad for the next game, with the manager nominating another three. Viewers then decide the final three nominees via their telephones. Pre-registered home and away attendees then vote on the final de-selection via mobile SMS texting.

The show was greenlit by Channel 4's head of cross-platform development Peter Grimsdale, who described the show as {an antidote to the Premier League.{ The concept came to Channel 4 from ex-Razorfish exec Mark Curtis, who C4 paired up with factual specialist Lion TV.

The cross-breeding of football with interactive reality is also being attempted by Endemol, with its The People's Club, and by Dutch format outfit IDtv, which has previously paired up with Holland's Eindhoven FC for a similar show called The Real Manager.