A delightful production from a bygone age when ITV - not to mention the BBC - broadcast single plays at primetime on a Sunday evening and could expect viewers by their millions to watch them.
Sunday morning football is a tradition in Britain, where mostly amateur leagues take place. They are as a competitive and confrontational as their professional counterparts, with referees having a terrible job stopping the players fighting.
There are also the supporters of each side, who police the game with an enthusiasm that far exceeds that of the players. Sometimes it seems that the entire game threatens to be drowned in a sea of recrimination.
Taking place on the outskirts of Manchester, Another Sunday and Sweet FA focuses on the referee of one of these games (David Swift), who lives in a tough area but lives for his Sundays, when he can put on the referee's uniform and carry out his duties. The game is tough, aggressive and uncompromising; he gets knocked out at one point, to be revived by the Parker Street Coach (Fred Feast) who mutters darkly later on that he shouldn't have got involved, as the referee is useless.
Rosenthal's main interest in this play is capturing the snippets of conversation that continue as the game is played. One side's goalkeeper (David Bradley) spends his time patching up his relationship with his wife (Susan Littler), and has to be reminded by his team-mates that he is also playing in a match. Two women walk up and down the side of the pitch; they are not related to any of the players, and spend their time talking about politics - that is, until their dog escapes and disrupts the game. Two other women (one played by Anne Kirkbride, later to be immortalized on television as Coronation Street's Deidre Langton) comment on the game but are dismissed as know-nothings by the men on the touchline. Football is a man's game, and has to remain as such for the males to sustain their sense of identity. Meanwhile the referee's changing hut is burgled by some young boys, who take some (but not all) of his money while everyone is busy.
The play ends with a climactic moment as unexpected as it is funny, with the referee at last having the chance to realize a dream. The players are astonished as well as resentful, but the referee defends himself with a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules.
Like most of Rosenthal's work, Another Sunday and Sweet FA catches the sheer inconsequentiality of people's conversation yet makes a lot of the Sunday