Awaydays
Green Street relocates to Brookside in this Merseyside makover of the staple football hooligan yarn. Art school drop-out Carty (Nicky Bell) hooks up with thoughtful Scouse thug Elvis at a Bunnymen gig and is drawn to The Pack, a rabid gang of terrace warriors. Benefitting from a cracking late 1970s soundtrack featuring the likes of Magazine and The Cure, this volatile chronicle of casual yobbery calls full time on any romantic notions of football violence.
The film begins in 1979 with Paul Carty (Nicky Bell), with his sister Molly, (Holliday Grainger) and father, at his mother’s graveside. After his sister escorts her dad away from the grave, Carty, looking at his watch, starts to run off. Along his way he gets changed into casual clothing and carries on running until he catches a football special train.
Aboard the train, he meets the leader of the football firm, John Godden (Stephen Graham), an ex-soldier who warns him he has no room for runners in his firm and he best stand his ground. When walking through the train, he meets Elvis (Liam Boyle), and Carty reminisces about how they met in a series of flashbacks. We learnt that Carty has always been fascinated by The Pack, observing them at Tranmere games when they fight and trying to dress like them, at which point Baby Millan (Oliver Lee), taunts Carty and threatens him but Elvis leads the other lads away and Carty stands his ground. Carty eventually meets Elvis at a club night and the pair realise they have many things in common from music taste to wanting out of Birkenhead. The pair fantasise about leaving for Berlin. Carty, over their next few meetings, begs Elvis to introduce him to The Pack but Elvis calls them a “gang of pricks” and says Carty does not want to be involved. Eventually, after Carty headbutts a rude sales assistant in a record shop to prove his fighting skills, Elvis gives in and tells him to meet him on the train at 12:00 on Saturday.