The beautiful game and a beautiful friendship

This basic premise for a 50-page script came out of the real-life experience of writer Roy Williams, whose laddishly encyclopedic knowledge of football was not matched by any prowess on the pitch. Williams, one of our leading playwrights, has previous form in dealing with cultural attitudes and football, having written Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads.

"Wayne is really good at art, is friends with a 'posh white kid' and idolises Carl, the school's star footballer, who is scouted for Chelsea Football Club," says 19-year-old Isaac Ssebandeke, who plays 14-year-old Wayne.

"Wayne hasn't got a clear view of his own strengths and weaknesses and the impossibility of making it at football himself. His classmates call him 'the Irish Pele'."

Prior to its performance at The Crucible Studio, the production has been on a tour of Yorkshire schools and has also been staged at Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United clubs.

The whole performance takes place on a football pitch set, and a cast of 16 characters are played by just two actors, Ssebandeke and Troy Glasgow, whose roles include Carl.

While Wayne idolises Carl, Carl is barely aware of the younger boy's existence. He is also busy wrestling with his own demons, which include dealing with a bully and a white girlfriend who allows her racist father's views to get in the way of her relationship with Carl.

"What initially attracted me to the play was the quality of the writing," says Isaac. "There's never a dull moment in it. I personally never had Wayne's experience. I was a Chelsea supporter when I was 14, but I was a small boy and didn't have much strength, so I knew I would never get anywhere in the game.

"I love the language of the play and what it says about friendship and loyalty. Wayne learns how important his friend is and learns to listen to that friend, who helps him to see what his true gifts are.

"Part of Wayne's problem about taking his talent at art seriously is that, unlike with Viv Anderson and football, he can't see any black role models in art, people who make him feel 'I can do that as well'. Nor do his family support him. During the course of the piece you see him learning to be who he really is." Although dealing with the heavy themes of bullying, racism and equality, Williams's writing doesn't beat the audience about the head with them. The useless footballer and the gifted one are brought together by adversity – both bullied for being different, but eventually rising above the obstacles that confront them.

How challenging was it to stage a football match scene in a relatively confined space with only two actors?

"Well, all the action takes place on the football pitch," says Isaac, whose previous theatre work includes The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Hammersmith Lyric Theatre and The Coat at the National Theatre Studio.

"To give the feeling of the match, the players and the spectators, we used mime. It's amazingly effective. Our audiences so far have responded so well. I think young boys especially are able to see a bit of themselves in Wayne."

There's Only One Wayne Matthews is at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, March 30-April 2. Tickets and information 0114 201 3828 or www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk