Heartland

It is Spring 2002 in the Black Country, with local elections looming. A mosque is being built on the site where iconic steelworks once dominated the town. "The Tipton Three" are in Guantanamo where the whites-only British National Party expect to win new seats on the council. Rob, once a professional soccer player like his famous father, is now a tracksuited teaching assistant, and a schoolboy whom he is teaching to read is stabbed in a gang attack. Within this cauldron, two local soccer teams, split along racial lines, play a Sunday league decider, billed by the press as "a match to spark race war." While England plays Argentina for the World Cup, the characters gather—Rob, Glenn, Jim, Tom, and Stacey behind the bar—to see what hope and solidarity they still share.