Wow! What a great movie!

Rating: 9/10 (23 May 2012)

I'm not going to do a literary critique here, I'm just going to say how realistic, poignant a compelling this was.
Fifteen year ago I was that boy, behind the West Ham goals, as they played Nottingham Forrest. Apparently it was a friendly match - not that I could tell.
I was taken there by a couple of lawyer friends who thought it would be a good wheeze to show an Australian what a real football match was. Trust me the film did not do it justice - how could they, its so full on as to be unbelievable.
Its not just shouting and singing, its whole crowd body movements and chanting. Needless to say after I had been clouted around the head a few times by those behind me for saying stupid things like "WOW! that was an amazing goal" (when the other team scored and everyone around me was in complete silence - and I was still shouting of course - such a dork). My friends kept telling everyone around us that "It's alright he's an Australian!". Everyone got friendly and kept trying to tell me how to behave.
The one thing that I missed in this film was the press on the train platforms and the access tunnels. My wife and I personally witnessed an old German man get beaten trying to protect his wife who had fallen over in the press. He was hysterical, and had lost the use of English before he disappeared under a flurry of fists. Not because anyone had anything against him, or indeed that anyone knew what was going on, but simply because he turned on the crowd in an attempt to prevent his wife from being crushed. There is really something animalistic with these matches.
I have also watched, at different times on different matches, the police, on mass, arrest people arriving to an away match in London, disappearing with their arrested charges and those commuters left behind finding that the platforms have gone from all but empty to so seriously crowded that those not moving with the crowd were in very real danger of falling onto the tracks.
Anyway, this film took me straight back to fifteen years ago. Its an amazing reproduction. I am not aware of such an accurate portrayal of the various "firms". Highly watchable, compelling and engaging.