 In what looks like a council flat, a distracted chain-smoking mom, who s at her wit s end what with the noise of her colicky infant, hangs a twirling ball over his crib. The child, a lad named Midge, quiets immediately. As he grows older, his mum seems oblivious to his existence and to his increasingly adept ball-handling skills. By age 12, Midge and the twirling ball are on the football pitch; but what about mum?