THE SONS OF BEN MOVIE - AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE OF EXTRAORDINARY FANDOM

If you're a football team who starts to gain a bit of momentum and start climbing up the league, more people start to come and watch you play. If you're a kids team, that's more parents on the sidelines in the early Saturday cold. If it's adult Sunday League, that's a couple more mates with a couple more cans and hangovers. If you're a professional team - the fans come in their thousands to see the club do well and enjoy the positive feeling it brings.

But the fans of what is now, the MLS franchise, Philadelphia Union did it the other way around. They galvanised the historic American city of Philadephia's football fans to the point where the MLS simply had to grant the struggling city its own dedicated franchise.

The movie Sons Of Ben is the tale of the eponymous fans' group who forced the powers that be to listen to the fans for a change and grant their wishes. They got the team their hard work deserved.

Here in the UK, we can draw some loose parallels to the infamous decision to relocate Wimbledon to Milton Keynes. But American sport doesn't quite operate in the same way as it does here, so a feeling of animosity isn't quite due. It's a move more akin to the soul renewing tale of fan driven AFC Wimbledon's climb up the leagues.

You can stream the film on iTunes in a whole host of countries, but it's available on all the major streaming services inside the US. Alternatively, you can purchase a DVD on the Sons Of Ben website.

By Paul Mortimer.