By Rachel Wagstaff

This play is about BULLYING and PRESSURE (to conform).

One day Ryan sees Omar being beaten up in the park by Jez. He intervenes and prevents this racist assault. Two years later, the pair have become best mates, formed a football team together, and are trying to get scouts to come to watch them play.

Omar’s sister Sabina helps Ryan write to scouts, and eventually a scout says he will come and see Ryan’s team play. Ryan and Omar are delighted, but need to find an extra player as one of their striker’s is away for this key game. They try everyone they can think of, without success. Eventually, Sabina suggests Jez. After initial reluctance, Omar and Ryan go along, to persuade Jez to join them for the game.  Sabina sees the boys’ enthusiasm for sport and begins to wonder if she should be more sporty. To impress Ryan, she takes up running…

Omar gets nervous before the trial, saying there are hardly any Asian players in the professional game. Ryan argues that this is exactly the reason why Omar must try to make it: to change it from within, to be part of inspiring the next generation.

The scout watches the game and Ryan and Omar get the news that they have secured a trial for themselves.  They are ecstatic. Jez, who is not offered a trial, is gutted.

Sabina confesses to Ryan she likes him; Ryan tries to respond to Sabina’s advances but Sabina realises his heart is not in it. She assumes it is because she is not attractive enough, so Ryan tries to reassure her. Sabina begins to wonder if Ryan actually prefers boys. Ryan is unable to answer her convincingly, and leaves.

Ryan goes off with Omar, and Sabina is left with Jez. Both are unhappy to Sabina seeks to cheer Jez up by telling him he will have other chances. Jez asks Sabina if she plays football. She tells him no, she has always assumed it wasn’t for her. Jez starts to teach Sabina how to play football, and is encouraging and takes the time to show her how much fun the game can be. However, in his disappointment, Jez’s latent racism is unleashed, and when Sabina lets slip that Ryan is gay, Jez (who is also homophobic) is furious that he has lost out on the trial front to Ryan.

Jez storms off to find Ryan. He insults Ryan. Omar at first stands up for Ryan, till he realises that Ryan is gay and has never told him. Omar leaves Jez beating Ryan up.

Sabina asks Omar why Ryan never comes round any more, and it emerges that no one has seen Ryan for days. Sabina gets worried so persuades her brother they should go round to Ryan’s dad’s house before the trial, to make up with Ryan. It turns out Ryan hasn’t been home either. They start to search for him, while Ryan’s dad delays the boys’ trials. They find Ryan just in time, but he refuses to come with them to the trial.  He fears that to be gay and to be a footballer is incompatible. Omar reassures him that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, and that he was in the wrong completely for leaving him to be beaten up. Sabina and Omar argue fiercely that Ryan mustn’t give up, that he must fight for his dream, that he mustn’t let prejudiced idiots defeat him. Once Sabina pledges to set up a woman’s football at her school, Ryan resolves to go to his trial, to fight to make the world a more tolerant place.

	For further information about this project, email our Tour Producer David Jackson