Mike Bassett: England Manager was a 2001 satirical fly-on-the-wall mockumentary that chronicled the rise and reign of a lovable northern rogue as coach of the Three Lions heading into the 2002 World Cup.

Actor Ricky Tomlinson caricatured the role of an old-school sheepskin-coat-wearing English football manager in all his foul-mouthed tea-cup-throwing glory, and for what he lacked in tactical knowledge he made up for in passion.

The film resembled the spirit and banter of amateur Sunday pub-league football and reminded us all of why we got into the beautiful game and the characters that once made it tick.

It was meant to be a comedy, but in many ways, Bassett summed up a love lost and what it meant to be a perfectly-flawed working-class Englishman — warm, honest, anything but politically-correct, open-to-all, but ultimately too quick to talk and too trusting for his own good.

Bassett could have been a nod to any number of real-life managers from an outdated generation, whether that be Harry Redknapp or the late Brian Clough, both of whom were overlooked for the England job for being at odds to the modern Football Association’s (FA) preference for corporate party-line-toeing ‘yes’ men.

Whoever Bassett was meant to be, after the current crop of soulless and robotic media-managed misfits failed dismally under Roy Hodgson at Euro 2016 this summer, what England desperately needed was a return to passion and heart.

The FA finally broke protocol and Sam Allardyce was the man cut from the same Bassett-esque ilk sent to save English football, and there weren’t many candidates left in that dying category who were able to relate to both players and fans alike.

From a humble council-estate upbringing in Dudley, West Midlands, the burly former defender and son of a police sergeant had to fight his way up in management the hard way, starting-off with Ireland’s Limerick in the early 1990s, after an unremarkable playing career.

He went on to achieve modest success with modest clubs, but his breakthrough was in getting Bolton Wanderers first into the Premier League and then into Europe.

In terms of history and fan-base, perennially underachieving Newcastle United was the biggest club he managed, but that brush with the supposed big-time lasted just eight months, with many feeling he had pushed the limit of his capabilities.

He once famously quipped he was good enough to manage Real Madrid, which only attracted derision as he never truly shook the image of a physical long-ball merchant who had done well with what little he had.

In many ways, getting the England job in July was a chance to finally prove himself at the highest level, and both Allardyce and England would equally need each other to unlock supposedly unfulfilled potential.

That dream ended after just 67 days this week when Big Sam was secretly filmed telling undercover reporters posing as Asian businessmen how to get around strict FA rules on third-party ownership of players, in a Daily Telegraph sting.

In his defence, such revelations don’t prove that he himself is guilty of such acts, it just shows that he has insight into misdeeds going on through his work in the industry.

However, the sheer fact he told these ‘businessmen’ how to circumnavigate rules goes against the principles of his employers, who he also criticised, along with Prince William, Roy Hodgson and Hodgson’s former assistant Gary Neville, as well as some of his own England players.

He was also using his £3 million-a-year (Dh14.29 million) position as England manager to set himself up for a speaking engagement with the ‘businessmen’ worth £400,000.

To his credit, he said he would have to check with the FA before agreeing to the role, but the fact he was pursuing these opportunities implies he was more preoccupied with chasing money than managing England.

For all of these naive and misguided decisions he left the FA with little option but to part company with him.

It wasn’t the first time he’s been beset by scandal as in 2006, he was also named for taking bribes, known as bungs, from agents via his son to sign players in a BBC Panorama investigation, for which he was eventually cleared.

This latest sting attempted to get him to talk about taking bungs, but again — to his credit — he said it wasn’t allowed.

Alas these are all just small redeeming factors in a wider rant that was more embarrassing than criminal or scandalous, but either way, the headlines it garnered would have distracted England’s rebuild and could have only been quelled by his sacking or forced resignation. Entrapment, as he said, had won.

It’s the death, not only of Allardyce’s dream, but also the dream of an old-school heart-on-the-sleeve traditionalist turning back the years to bring England back to basics and glory.

Redknapp and Clough never got the chance to do that and now Allardyce has squandered his opportunity as well.

One of the ironies of approaching these no-nonsense straight-talkers is that they come with the baggage and unbridled opinions of men of their generation and experience. They also hail from an era whose ethics are increasingly under question.

While their ability to inspire isn’t doubted, it’s their inability not to ruffle feathers or cause commotion that is. But even the FA wouldn’t have expected the experiment to end this quickly.

In the end, not everything is like the movies and even then, Mike Bassett only led England to the semifinals. So, perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be.