From football coach to rising documentary voice: Scott Hames’ remarkable journey

A former football coach from Wigan has carved out an unlikely but inspiring new career in independent journalism, and he’s doing it entirely on his own.

Scott Hames, now living in Glossop, made the bold decision to pursue documentary filmmaking after the Covid lockdowns. With no formal training, no production team and no industry backing, Scott taught himself how to film, edit, research and produce his own content.

What started as a personal project has quickly grown into a powerful online platform. Today, Scott regularly attracts over 50,000 views per YouTube video, with some of his TikTok documentaries surpassing one million views. He now boasts more than 13,000 YouTube subscribers and over 25,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok combined.

Scott has lost many friends along the way that doubted him and told him he wouldn’t make it without a professional team, Scott has proven those doubts wrong.

“I’ve been told so many times that I needed a crew or a company to succeed,” Scott told the Chronicle.

Scott’s documentaries are known for tackling difficult and often overlooked subjects, including eviction, ketamine addiction, and the experiences of former prison officers. His work focuses on real people, real stories and raw honesty - a style inspired by the Vice and Channel 4 documentaries he watched growing up.

Through his work Scott has had many people and families reaching out to him. Some families have told him how they lost their children to drugs like ketamine, and how the documentary was eye opening.

One person Scott interviewed was Mark, who became addicted to ketamine during high school. Now at aged 19, Mark spoke out about his experience in Scott’s documentary "Inside A Teen's 11-Gram A Day Ketamine Addiction: Bladder Damage, Blackouts And Rehab" in which Scott spoke to people across the UK about the impact of the addiction.

Mark shared his story on Scott's documentary. Credit: Scott Hames Journalist

Now based in Glossop, Scott continues to build his platform independently, handling every stage of production himself, from initial research and filming to editing and publishing.