Going Over the Top

When he signs his first contract as a professional footballer and marries the woman he loves the future could not be brighter for Bertie Brewer, a young man who has grown up in London's impoverished East End. However, all of this is about to be shattered, as war is declared and the clamour to recruit a new army begins.

Mabel's family hits hard times and it seems to her that life will never be the same again until she meets Bertie and falls in love. But she faces an uncertain future, as he heads off to war. With the prospect of a future alone, she will have her own battles to fight, as the war comes closer to home than she could ever have imagined.

Charlie Dexter has the world at his feet, as a modern-day footballer in the greatest league in the world, but injury and addiction put everything he has worked so hard for in jeopardy. He fights his way back to the top and along the way comes face to face with the life of another footballer, who trod the same path three quarters of a century before him.

The lives of Bertie and Charlie converge, in the valley of the Somme at the village of Longueval, where the lives of so many fallen heroes are commemorated.

"Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore."