It is early October 2021 and The Big Issue is in Haggerston, East London, where the final scene of The Beautiful Game is being filmed. The new Netflix film follows the England team, featuring rising stars Micheal Ward (Small Axe: Lovers Rock) and It’s a Sin’s Callum Scott Howells – and their manager, Mal, played by Bill Nighy – to the Homeless World Cup in Italy.
On our way to the football pitches of today’s location, we walk past St Chad’s church, where a large group of men and women are waiting for food at the community kitchen. The stories in the film may be fictional, but they are rooted in the very real housing and homelessness crisis that’s visible all around us. The Homeless World Cup is also real: dreamt up in a conversation between Big Issue in Scotland co-founder Mel Young and Harald Schmid, who ran a street paper in Graz, Austria.
Since the inaugural tournament in July 2003, it has offered life-changing inspiration and opportunity to people from 70 countries. And it’s needed now more than ever.
Out on the astroturf, Nighy is in the centre circle. He’s surrounded by young players. Director Thea
