Love It If We Beat Them

Love It If We Beat Them Emmerson & Ward

Football, politics and the Labour of love. It’s Spring 1996, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United are riding high in the Premier League and Tony Blair’s New Labour are gathering pace. As winter turns to spring, the Toon are twelve points clear at the top of the league and their fans are daring to think the unthinkable – Premier League champions!

One of those die-hard fans is Len Hinchcliffe, a Labour councillor in an ex-mining village and veteran of the old left, whose passion for football is matched only by his passion for politics. Len has proudly represented his community at local level for two decades and championed the socialist cause. When his local MP suddenly dies, the parliamentary seat on his home turf is up for grabs. Len thinks he’s a shoe-in.

But the Labour Party have other ideas and soon parachute in their preferred candidate, Victoria Hetherington, a younger woman who has been inspired to join the party by its charismatic new leader Tony Blair. Suddenly, Len’s status quo is under threat. Socialism, as he sees it, is under threat.

Love It If We Beat Them is a winning new play about how things can only get better.