The Thistle is the unlucky local football team of Drumsagart, a drab industrial town in Lanarkshire. Cursed with poverty, an ineffective president and a string of defeats, the Thistle players are running low on morale, especially when it seems so many people are against them. Despite their dismal prospects the team cling to the beautiful game as a last hope and dream. And, when they actually start winning, a momentum grows up in the community around them, as they come to represent ambition and hope. The Holy Grail of football, the Scottish Junior Cup, glitters at the end of a string of matches and suddenly the entire town of Drumsagart is depending on it.