Purely Belter

Sewell and Gerry McCarten are two football-obsessed teenagers from broken families in Gateshead, and the story unfolds over the course of a year split into four sections named after the seasons. From their first audacious act—breaking into Newcastle United’s St James’ Park to lift the stadium’s sacred turf from the penalty spot—the film follows how a single bold success can snowball into a chance-filled but chaotic dream. With the help of their imagined guardian angel, the Angel of the North, the friends start dreaming of enough money to buy season tickets, a goal that seems almost as precious as the turf they stole. To reach that target—almost a thousand pounds—they explore every quick-cash scheme they can find, shifting from scrap collecting and babysitting to shoplifting and housebreaking. Gerry keeps every coin they manage to scrape together in a tin box at home, a tangible reminder of how close they are to breaking into a different life.

Sewell lives under the care of his perpetually befuddled grandfather, Roy Hudd, and the two form a close, if uneasy, partnership with a stray dog that keeps wandering back to their doorstep. The dog’s presence binds Sewell to a growing circle of ordinary trouble, while his heart is pulled by Gemma, a girl who is briefly linked to Zak, the muscular ice-hockey player for the Whitley Bay Warriors. Gerry McCarten returns home to his sickly mother, [Gerry’s mother](Charlie Hardwick) and his sister Clare, who has a baby of her own. The family is torn apart by a violent father figure, Billy, Billy, who has been abusing Bridget, a young girl who has run away from home and stands at the edge of their fragile world.

Their lives take a sharper turn when Gerry is briefly placed in school by a social worker in exchange for two free football tickets. At the school, he faces a bully of a teacher, a reminder that stability remains elusive. In a rash bid for payback, Gerry and Sewell attempt to burgle the same house again, nearly getting caught in the act. The dream of tickets to a big match finally materializes, but they discover the two seats are for Sunderland—not the Newcastle team they once worshiped—so they end up watching the game from the Stadium of Light, a humbling reversal that puts their ambitions into sharper perspective.

Billy soon locates Gerry’s new flat and relishes in taking all the money the boys have saved. In a quiet, empty fairground, Gerry spots Bridget again, though she slips away when he leaves to fetch food. Gemma’s story twists when she breaks up with Zak and becomes Sewell’s girlfriend, intensifying the year’s emotional stakes. The friends’ lives are laid bare on Crimestoppers, a TV hook that exposes their criminal acts to a broad audience, and the dog’s previous owner, a violent thug, recognizes the animal on television and tracks Sewell down to settle old scores. The violence escalates, and the two boys find themselves entangled in danger they hadn’t anticipated.

A break at the Newcastle United training ground at Riverside Pavilion briefly brings Alan Shearer into their orbit; they beg him for season tickets, only to be met with laughter. They soon steal a sports car, only to discover it belongs to Shearer himself, a turn of luck that culminates in a reckless moment of freedom as the pair go skinny dipping. The mood shifts dramatically when Gemma reveals she is pregnant, a revelation that should bind them, but she later returns to her former fiancé, leaving Sewell to grapple with a mix of hope and fear.

Sewell’s resolve is tested again when he attacks Gemma’s ex during an ice-hockey match, only to be met by a counterattack from his ex’s teammates. Meanwhile, Gerry’s mother’s illness deepens the family’s crisis, and Gerry seeks his father Billy but finds him uninterested and unhelpful. After they lose all their hard-earned money, the pair decide on one last, audacious crime: a bank robbery that goes disastrously wrong, ending with their arrest. The harsh truth lands hard when Gerry learns that Billy has died in a road accident, a twist that casts a somber shade over their entire year.

The sentence—200 hours of community service—offers a fragile path back to ordinary life, and an older woman for whom they work grants them a rare glimpse of normalcy by letting them watch Newcastle United play from the balcony of her tall tower-block overlooking the stadium. In this quiet uplift, the film suggests that even after a year of upheaval, there are small moments of grace that can anchor two boys who dared to dream too ambitiously.

If you’re looking for a story of teenage impulse, ambition, and the precarious line between luck and consequence, this year-long arc tracks the rise and fall of two friends who chase football dreams with stubborn hope, even as the world around them insists on pulling them back to ground.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 16:41