Ian Smith

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

In a typical English working-class town, the juveniles have nothing more to do than hang around in gangs. One day, Alan Darcy, a highly motivated man with the same kind of youth experience, starts trying to get the young people off the street and into doing something they can believe in: Boxing. Darcy opens a boxing club, aiming to bring the rival gangs together.

Jamie Johnson is a kid with a dream. A dream and a talent which could take him all the way to the very top. It’s a story about handling your parents (or lack of them) and getting through school with your friendships and soul intact. And it’s about football; the mud, the blood, the passion, the tears and the jumpers for goalposts on a Sunday in the park when you play with every fibre of your being and nothing else matters.