Hooligans drop onto a path leading south (9)
I believe the answer is:
tearaways
'hooligans' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'drop onto a path leading south' is the wordplay.
'drop' becomes 'tear' (I've seen this before).
'onto' says to put letters next to each other.
'a path leading' becomes 'away' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'south' becomes 's' ('S' can be a synonym of 'south').
'tear'+'away'+'s'='TEARAWAYS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for tearaways that I've seen is " delinquents".)