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Only two little words keep every Hammer in England up all night... ”United
away".
Matt Buckner is thrown off his Harvard journalism course after cocaine is discovered in his room. The
drugs belong to his preppy roommate
Jeremy Van Holden but Buckner is afraid to speak up because the Van Holdens are
a powerful family. Jeremy is paid $10,000 for his dealings, and he leaves the
room. Matt takes the money and uses the money to travel to the United Kingdom to live
with his sister Shannon, her husband Steve Dunham and their newborn son.
Matt meets Steve's brother, Pete, a loud Cockney football hooligan, in his early-to-mid 20s who
loves football. Steve proposes that Pete takes Matt to see West Ham
United play at home to Birmingham City. Pete is very reluctant to
take a "Yank" to a football
match, given the xenophobic nature of Pete's friends and other football fans.
But he is persuaded to take him when Steve won't give him any money otherwise.
Steve, in fact, gives money to Matt instead of Pete, and tells Matt not to give
any to Pete. On the way to the game, Pete tells Matt that there is nothing less
he would like to do than take a Yank to the game, so he proposes that Matt give
him half the money. Matt refuses, keeping his promise to Steve, resulting in
Pete threatening Matt. Matt tries to trick Pete by announcing the false presence
of the police and while distracted he swings a kick at him. But he is easily
blocked and thrown to the ground. Pete decides that he will bring Matt with
him.
Matt meets Pete's friends in the Abbey. Pete and his friends are in a
football firm. "Firms" are the names for organized gangs of supporters of a
football team who plan and provoke fights with the firms of opposing teams.
After a few pints of lager, they all walk to Upton Park to see the game. A fight is started
with Birmingham's firm - Matt getting jumped by three Birmingham fans, who nearly perform a gruesome
torture act upon him (the 'Chelsea Grin') until a small party of the GSE
intervene, which progresses to a bigger fight with the rest of Birmingham's
firm. Though grossly outnumbered, the GSE manage to hold their ground until
reinforcements of the GSE arrive led by Bovver and chase off the Birmingham
firm. Matt does well in his first true fight and is inducted into the GSE.
It is revealed that the GSE's sworn enemy is Millwall's firm, led by Tommy
Hatcher. When Bovver begins to get sick of Matt being close with Pete, he starts
negotiating with Hatcher. One of the firm sees Matt in The Times' headquarters when his father, who is a
renowned journalist, has come to town and is taking Matt to lunch. Bovver learns
this and mistakenly presumes that Matt is also a journalist and is using his
time in the firm for a news story. Bovver confronts Pete about Matt's
journalism. Pete's brother Steve finds out and goes to the Abbey to warn Matt.
It is then that Matt finds out that Steve used to be the "The Major," the leader
of the GSE.
When Steve was The Major, the last game he went to was West Ham versus Millwall, to which Tommy
Hatcher brought along his 12-year-old son, a son who Tommy had raised to be
hard. After the game, a fight broke out between the GSE and the Millwall firm.
Tommy's son got badly caught up in the fight and was killed. Since then Tommy
Hatcher "lost it," blaming the death of his son solely on the GSE, mainly Steve
Dunham. After seeing Tommy's son die, Steve quit the GSE.
Bovver arrives, and there is a big argument in the Abbey, which is eventually
resolved, but Bovver still doesn't trust Matt. Infuriated, he goes to Millwall's
local and asks Tommy Hatcher to come to the Abbey to sort stuff out. At first
Hatcher is reluctant, until Bovver tells Hatcher that Steve Dunham is there.The
Millwall firm crash the Abbey, with Tommy Hatcher petrol bombing the bar and confronting Steve
Dunham. Whilst Steve proclaims he's no longer part of the GSE and says he has a
wife and son. Tommy gets even angrier ("I had a son once!") and stabs Steve in
the neck with a broken bottle, telling him "If you die tonight, you and me are
even."
During the fight in the Abbey, Bovver is knocked out outside. When he comes
around, Steve Dunham is being carried out of the Abbey with blood flowing from
his neck, which makes Bovver hysterical and deeply regretful. Steve is taken to
the hospital by Pete, Matt and Bovver, where Pete blasts Bovver for getting his
brother in hospital and saying he despises him. The end fight involves both
sides going into a resolution brawl. Bovver shows up and fights for GSE, trying
to make up for what he has done. When helping up Pete, who has been badly hurt
by Tommy Hatcher, Pete tells him that if he wants to make up for what he has
done, he should get Matt's sister and infant nephew, who have turned up
unexpectedly, out of there immediately, as one of Hatcher's men is trying to
attack them.
Tommy Hatcher goes toward the car that Matt's sister is in to get revenge on
Steve Dunham, but Pete distracts him by shouting to him, asking if he wants to
"finish him off." After Tommy says he has already finished him off, Pete, still
determined to protect his brother's wife and child, says that Tommy is to blame
for not protecting his son all those years ago ("He was your SON!"). Tommy is
driven to insanity by these remarks and he attacks Pete and eventually beats him
to death, all the while shouting out the words to the chant 'Only a poor little
Hammer'. The fight completely halts at this point, and Tommy is eventually
pulled off Pete by some of his friends, still screaming. Everyone there stands
over Pete's dead body with Bovver sobbing at his side.
Matt then drives with his sister to the airport, to fly back to America. He
confronts Jeremy Van Holden in a restaurant toilet where Jeremy is snorting
cocaine. Previously promising to hook him up after Matt took the fall for him,
Jeremy agrees again to do so but arrogantly tells Matt to leave. Matt then pulls
out a tape recorder and plays back what Jeremy just said, saying that it is his
"ticket back to Harvard." Jeremy tries to steal the tape off him, but Matt
easily reverses his attack and holds his fist up, as if to punch Jeremy, who is
now a quivering wreck. Matt does not punch Jeremy, but instead walks out with a
smile as Jeremy collapses to the floor, defeated. The film ends with Matt walking down an American street outside the
restaurant singing West Ham's song, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."
 Copyright(C) 2007
- 2020. All rights reserved.
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