Lenin Of The Rovers was a Radio 4 sitcom from 1988 and 1989. It starred Alexei Sayle as Ricky Lenin, a footballing descendant of the more famous Lenin, who turns Felchester Rovers into Britain’s only communist football team.
The other key characters are Stevie Stalin, Terry Trotsky, Colonel Brace-Cartwright and commentator Frank Lee Brian. The latter role was just as key to the show as Alexei Sayles, as it was played by iconic football commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme.
The series was a dual parody, of football comics like Roy of the Rovers, and of the commercialization of football, which had begun to pick up steam at the time. The first series seems a little leaden now, and Keith Allen’s Terry Trotsky is a one note Liverpudlian stereotype. The second, with Phil Cornwell in the role, is a much livelier affair, helped in part by guest appearances by John Sessions and Jim Broadbent. This was born out by the audio cassette release the show was given, with only series 2 seeing the light of day on BBC Audio. Which was a much loved Christmas present when I got it in 1992, and subsequently played to death.
With the creation of BBC7 the series has been repeated on occasion, and there have been torrents appearing here and there. There’s a user on Demonoid (down atm) who has seemingly created a vast archive of BBC comedy shows and I picked up a fresh copy of the series from there a few months back. I was surprised to see that recordings were taken from the original broadcasts, complete with the continuity announcer informing the listener that the first two episodes are the final performances of the late Ballard Barkley (the Colonel in Fawlty Towers) as Colonel Brace-Cartwright.