By Victor Olliver - Fans of Ultravox, Joy Division, The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen may want to sue - according to Pat Holden's movie you're all (the guys, I mean) hopeless in the sack.

The pic abounds with speedo copulations that would shame a libidinous street pooch with stud pretensions.

It's 1979 and Maggie's just hit the fan. In post-punk Liverpool, feckless youths congregate around the footie.

Based on Kevin Sampson's acclaimed novel, Awaydays is a marriage of gothic mood music and violent, fashion-based tribalism around Tranmere Rovers.

The Pack gang may look like music fashionistas in their Fred Perry shirts, Lois jeans and Adidas Forest Hills trainers - complete with girly wedge haircuts - but they're brutes.

Middle class Paul Carty (Nicky Bell) wants in. He's looking for a fight.

His entree is his intense friendship with The Pack's golden boy, Elvis (Liam Boyle) - an enigmatic junkie.

Two things alert you to exotic Elvis's veiled sexuality: a Bowie-esque desire to board ship to Berlin and modish black nail varnish, which spreads to all his fingers as we get to know him.

Carty may have nine O-levels but he's thick about Elvis: he'd be deaf even if Elvis's love dared to speak its name.

Awaydays is a wonderful example of nostalgie de la boue - the "yearning for the mud". The pic wallows in Mersey misery evoked by its music heroes.

Bell slips between loving brother and hooligan while Elvis is almost Ian Curtis-like. A tragic figure: a dreamer seeking an exit out of hell.

The pic mirrors the nastiness of The Football Factory while honouring the the lyrical energy of Quadrophenia.

Director Holden brilliantly recreates the dingy club caverns of the late 70s.

A slowed-down version of Robert Smith's mournful 10.15, Saturday Night sets the perfect mood for the film's most affecting Carty/Elvis scene - marking a new maturity in football flicks.

The women, of course, are treated as furniture throughout - a sad tribute to realism. Even so, an intoxicating film for music miserabilists. Verdict 4/5