An Outsider’s Sport’s Night

Never being one for sport myself, having been so inept at school I was made to run laps instead of ruining rugby for everyone else, the prospect of an entire ‘Sports Night’ was a daunting one. For starters, what to wear?

A quick rifle through my cupboard came up with a variety of patterned flannels, heavy brogues and stripy cardigans. STRIPY CARDIGANS? ‘Hugh, you cannot go to Sports Night dressed as the leader singer of Keane’ I said to myself, bemoaning the fact that I’ve never once been into a SuperDry or any shop ending in ‘Wills’. In the end I settled for a Tab T-shirt, you know, to blend in.

Once inside, I sat and waited for the mayhem to begin, innocently assuming all the stories would be true. Surely it would be moments before people were naked on all fours getting slapped with a catch-of-the-day or sext-vomming into a group of indiscriminately marker-penned peers? Well no, actually. It was on the whole rather tame.

Perhaps everyone was little drunker than a usual night out, which was most likely down to the fact that people had been playing sport all afternoon, a factor that usually gets you drunk a whole lot quicker, but even then the shenanigans were at practically banal in comparison to the typical media-myths of ‘what sporty types get up to’ (there wasn’t a single orgy?!).

Accusations of elitism also seemed unfounded. On average, even several pints to the wind, sports men and women are a pretty friendly bunch, even to people who once thought that Andrew and Freddie Flintoff were two different men. Perhaps it’s all those endorphins. Or, according to new research, it may be down to good ‘ol team spirit. Whatever the cause, a Wednesday night seems to evoke a lot more hugging than your average bender, and a night full of hugging could never be a bad thing.

I personally am unable to comment on how the evening at The Loop compares to the previous venue of The Roxy, having never been to the latter, but the general consensus was a bit ‘meh’, partly due to some extraordinary queuing issues, but that tends to be the reaction to anything new. To include a geek-friendly analogy, we should remember how maligned Matt Smith was for usurping David Tennant as The Doctor, before quickly becoming hailed as the saviour of the series. And for my part, you can never go wrong with a light-up dance-floor.

All in all the ‘New Sports Night’ was pretty much like every other sports night, anywhere you go; a gathering of people to celebrate team physical activities (or simply to celebrate), and a pretty fun one at that. It’s basically just like most nights out, just with a few more people dedicated to the cause of getting quite pissed in the vain hope of a snog. Which is all anyone can really ask for.