Once again, our village of Bishop Monkton will be centre stage spotlight as Strike Productions return in 2026 to make a second series of the children's comedy programme, “Football Fantastics” for the CBeebies television channel.

This is “fantastic” news for the village as the fee for filming will bring another welcome boost to Village Hall funds. Adjustments have been made to the contract to help mitigate some of the minor issues (always very quickly resolved it has to be said) which arose this year.

The production company will be back from February 23rd to April 24th. The filming schedule has been brought forward slightly in order for the show to be screened to coincide with the 2026 World Cup, which starts on Thursday June 11th. Obviously, villagers know which one will be top of their priority watch list!

Filming earlier in the year is beneficial as far as bowls, cricket and croquet are concerned with less disruption as the playing seasons will barely have started. As happened this year, alternative arrangements will be made for all clubs and societies who have daytime bookings at the Hall to move elsewhere, and all costs incurred because of these changes will be met by the Village Hall.

The Hall will remain available for weekend bookings for the duration of the filming.

The Village Hall Committee is fully committed to using the money from the Strike contract for long term projects and is keen to stress that it is not there to subsidise the day to day running of the hall. The money from last year's filming has been spent on the installation of Wi-Fi at the Hall, a refurbished boules court and the purchase of an up-to date electric mower. Possible projects being considered from the money that will be generated in 2026 are an outside toilet and completing the tarmacadam path around the perimeter of the fields. Both of these ideas were supported by well over 50% of those who responded to the Village Hall survey earlier this year. A removable verandah fence is also under consideration, a suggestion from several people in the survey.

So get ready, once more, for this live-action, pre-school comedy with six irrepressibly children, led by a football mad coaching team and a nature loving groundskeeper at their fun and chaotic Saturday morning football club where mishaps are inevitably bound to occur.

Please click here for a video, with the village hall and playing fields very much to the forefront, that goes behind the scenes to show how this comedy drama was created, the transformation that took place in the village hall and why it was important to cast real footballers.