Fought closely with good pupil once in street (8)
I believe the answer is:
grappled
'fought closely' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'good pupil once in street' is the wordplay.
'good' becomes 'g' (abbreviation).
'pupil once' becomes 'apple' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'street' becomes 'rd'.
'apple' put inside 'rd' is 'rappled'.
'g'+'rappled'='GRAPPLED'
'with' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for grappled that I've seen before include "Got to grips" , "Secured with a hook" .)