Foul play

A harrowing real-life drama about the scandal that shocked English football

- HANNAH DAVIES, NATASHA HOLT, IAN MACEWAN, RICHARD MCCLURE

NEW DRAMA

Floodlights

Tuesday, 9pm, BBC2

Like so many football-mad teenagers, Andrew Woodward dreamed of playing professionally. So when Crewe Alexandra youth coach Barry Bennell picked him out as a budding talent in the late 1980s, both Andrew and his parents, Jean and Terry, were over the moon.

However, beneath Bennell’s easy-going facade lurked a predatory paedophile who would sexually abuse Andrew for a number of years, and had done the same thing to many other boys.

Andrew’s harrowing true story is told in feature-length drama Floodlights, starring Gerard Kearns as the adult Andrew, who played for clubs including Sheffield United before retiring in 2003.