Sometimes, running is the best way to escape from a frustrating reality. Other times it’s enough to stand still. Colin Smith is a rebellious youth from a humble neighbourhood who is used to the violent and repressive practices applied by English institutions to all those youths who prove to be unruly. But he has a talent for long-distance races, an endowment that the Governor of the borstal wants to use to win a competition between approved schools.

However, for Colin this means that now he can use that which helped him to shake off the anger and frustration that the stifling social environment produced on him to reassert it. Tony Richardson film is not a typical story of sporting improvement, but a devastating and utter social criticism. A paradigmatic example of what was known as the English “free cinema”.