It will premiere on BT Sport 1 on 2 March
BT Sport is to premiere football fan-focused documentary, Ours, on 2 March next month.
Airing at 10.30pm on BT Sport 1, the film looks at the role that fans have in the future of football.
Written and narrated by journalist Michael Calvin, and directed by Tom Boswell, Ours asks searching questions about identity and belonging, and finds hope in clubs that are run by, or heavily influenced by, their fans.
Contributions from fans, players, and owners from throughout the football pyramid examines clubs such as recently re-made Bury AFC and AFC Wimbledon, as well as others.
It is the third collaboration between Calvin and BT Sports Films, following No Hunger in Paradise, which explored the perils and pitfalls of football’s academies and youth development, and State of Play, an examination of the footballing zeitgeist of the 21st century.
Clubs included in Ours:
Bury AFC: the most recent example of how fans rebuilt a club from the ground up.
AFC Wimbledon: the quintessential fan-run model and of what can be achieved by a group of determined fans.
Portsmouth: run into the ground by a series of questionable owners, the fans stepped in and saved the club from the brink of extinction.
AFC Rushden and Diamonds: how does a phoenix club deal with the constraints of the current pandemic?
Ebbsfleet: how can a club survive when it is the victim of an ill-fated experiment with fan ownership?
Lewes FC: a look at how community-run football can serve as a force for social change and unite a local community.
Hashtag United and The Sidemen: what does the next generation of football fan look like?
Ours is also the latest in the BT Sport Films series, that has included Proud To Be Town – the story of Harrogate Town fighting their way through a global pandemic, battling for survival and promotion to the football league for the first time, Greavsie – the tale of the rise, fall and rise again of Jimmy Greaves one of the finest footballers in British history, Bosman – The Player Who Changed Football – which looks into the story of Jean-Marc Bosman and how the Belgian footballer took on European football’s governing bodies to redefine the game, and Too Good To Go Down – the rarely told story of how relegation in the mid-1970s enabled the modern-day Manchester United to emerge.
Sally Brown, executive producer of BT Sport Films, said: “The last 12 months have brought the importance of fans to the fore, the pandemic re-emphasising the role that their passion plays both in and away from the stadium. A strikingly relevant piece of work, Ours confronts the flaws of the modern game and celebrates those that help make it a reality.”