Farewell Snobs: we say goodbye as it moves to its new home

As I entered the old Snobs for the last time I prepared myself for something insane.

Over 40 years the club has built up a reputation of excess. At least it has to anyone who’s ever carried my vomit laden, beer stained body back over the threshold.

Trying to get me home after Snobs is like trying to lead a camel through the eye of a needle. Except the camel is swaying and bellowing Mr Brightside out of tune.

Let us never forget the night I discovered Absinthe

I was ready and prepared for a night to savour. A night to make Caligula look like a pussy in a toga. A night that, one day, I could never tell the kids about. A night that, one day, I would have to tell my councillor about.

I was almost worried about bringing a camera in case I was arrested for making a snuff film.

But what I didn’t expect was a completely normal night. And That’s what I got.

This isn’t a dig at Snobs- it is still the second best place to get messy while listening to 80’s music after Ozzy Osborne’s house.

The night was good, the beer was cheap, the people were friendly and the bouncers as lax as ever.

It’s my fault for imagining Snob’s closing event would be The Wolf Of Wall Street meets Eyes Wide Shut meets a day in the life of Charlie Sheen.

What the night actual turned into, was something far more poignant.

As always groups of blokes linked arms and jumped up and down. As always, myself and a couple of others tried to start a mosh pit. And as always everyone cheered when start of The Chain came blaring over the speakers.

Then the crowd returned to throwing themselves into each other and beaming like they were in the world’s friendliest bar fight.

Dear MTV: Please make “World’s Friendliest Bar Fights” a real show narrated by Craig Charles

Perhaps the only notable highlight of the night was that a friend and unfortunate member of the bar staff had to endure half an hour of my constant pestering for impossible drinks orders.

Apparently Snobs doesn’t have a house red. Or a half pint of cream soda with two slices of apple in it- one floating, one sunk, served in a hollowed out elephant tusk.

I’m sorry.

No tusks but how about 220 creepy marble faces?

Maybe that could be classed as an anti-climax to the grand finale, but in away, I felt it was a far better tribute to a place that has always been a great night out.

Because- I thought as I staggered to the upper bar and stared down onto the dancefloor- there is something special about Snobs.

I don’t know if it’s the lack of fucks given by the bouncers or the fact half the crowd have pupils the size of bowling balls.

But somehow Snobs has a warm, positive atmosphere unique among events attended by both students and locals alike.

I can’t be the only one to feel this way. How many other places get a two day closing extravaganza when really they’re just moving five minutes down the road?

Let’s just hope that place down the road is even better.

And here is that new place, complete with traditional waving idiots in the background