George Fuller (Ben Nealon) 2006

Duration: EP: 376 - 378  |  SE: 9.209.22

 

When Harchester United face Chelsea in the Carling Cup final, Liam MacKay deliberately injures Asa Maloin unintentionally ending the opposite player's career. George Fuller is a solicitor acting on behalf of the club's legal services, and becomes involved when Chelsea may potentially bring legal action against Liam and Harchester. Before that goes further however, Liam's manager Alex Dempsey, who also had a career ending injury with the same tackle from the same player, reports him himself to the police. When Liam sits before a press conference and states while he never meant to end Maloin's career, he did intend to hurt him after he'd already performed a bad tackle on Hector. George believes the time has come for the club to suspend Liam, backed up by Alex, though Lynda is reluctant.

 

As Harchester prepare to face Spurs at the Lair, Liam receives a standing round of applause from the home crowd for his honesty. But there are further repercussions, as the two teams fail to walk out onto the pitch. It is learnt that the insurers are refusing to cover their players if another injury occurs, with the situation whipped up by Lynda announcing legal action against Maloin on behalf of Hector. The match is abandoned, and the trickle flows through to all the other Premiership games. When UEFA announce an emergency meeting on the situation, George acts as Harchester's representative, and reports back that only cover will be provided for accidental injuries, meaning Harchester must drop its lawsuit against Maloin... and Liam must receive a lifetime ban from football. Lynda is adamantly against this, but George insists as the rescheduled matches could cut into England's World Cup preparations causing more blame for Harchester if they exit early.

 

Liam's ban goes ahead, but Lynda is determined to fight for him, and a surprise intervention from Maloin in a TV broadcast sees him concede that the nature of the game saw him end up like this. Asa also admits his own truth - that he did intend to hurt Hector, but only so he'd think twice about taking the ball, and UEFA shouldn't ban Liam because he himself is just as guilty. George and Lynda come up with the plan of threatening UEFA with the courts. The response is, that Liam drops his lawsuit and they will drop his ban, but on one condition: UEFA still proceeds with an inquiry at the end of the season. Liam wants to take the offer as it means two more months of football when he could refuse and still lose in the end.