They think it's all over... it is now for Harchester United, the stars of Sky One's Dream Team which is being axed after 10 years.
In some ways the Sunday night football soap was way ahead of its time, a trashy drama pre-dating the likes of ITV's Footballers' Wives.
But Dream Team never shared the budget of the ITV football drama, and in its pre-watershed slot it was never as racy either. Unlike Footballers' Wives, Dream Team actually had some football in it.
But now Footballers' Wives is showing its age as well, with ratings for the last series down a couple of million on previous runs, and its future uncertain.
With Wayne Rooney grabbing the back page headlines instead of David Beckham, perhaps football just isn't as sexy anymore. Wayne and Colleen might be good news for sales of Burberry, but they were never going to inspire scriptwriters like Posh and Becks' celebrity excess did.
Indeed, even Dream Team executive producer Jane Hewland admitted she had started to run out of ideas, and said she would be "relieved it was all over".
Not surprising, really, for a show which has featured every plotline imaginable - murder, affairs, corruption, blackmail, catastrophe and nervous breakdowns. The last season ended with the Harchester coach in flames, several star players dead and, it says here, "Lynda Block released from prison following the murder of Prashant Dattani".
It makes EastEnders look like the Antiques Roadshow.
The Dream Team might be over, but what are the wider lessons for TV drama? Is TV's love affair with football at an end - or has trash TV just moved on to new pastures with Hotel Babylon? Had enough of glossy soap operas? Got a favourite episode? Or should it be filed alongside Family Affairs: "gone, and pretty much forgotten".
