I went to SportsNite sober

SportsNite at Loop is infamous.

You’ll typically be hammered on Glen’s, negotiating the two sweaty nobodies getting off in front of you – or trying to negotiate an infinitely forgettable fuck for yourself.

You’ll typically fail, but continue grooving and gurning to that NOW64 sound track, popping in and out of the smoking area to puff on a poorly rolled cigarette every half hour.

Loop before the Wednesday’s avalanche of goons

This week, instead of pre-drinking with my pals and heading to Loop too drunk to remember my “ironic” slut-drops on Tottenham Court Road, I decided to do the impossible: endure Sports Night completely sober.

My flatmates had also agreed to participate in the challenge – deeming it a “social experiment” – so their enthusiasm put me in fairly good spirits.

Sober as a judge

I arrived at the club at a conservative 11.15pm and was immediately frisk searched by a bouncer, who probably assumed from my placid expression that I was buzzing on third rate mandy.

I strolled in to the sound of “Talk Dirty to Me” by Jason Derulo, echoing from the dungeons of the already-packed club.

I was met with a wave of flailing arms and legs at the bottom of the stairs, hundreds of nobodies on the sticky dance floor.

Soon I was swallowed by a pack of rugby players, slipping and sliding between their lubricated, sweaty arms, like the worst round of dodgem cars ever.

On my left, a pack of elephantine rugby-playing idiots, on my right, two sloshed freshers devouring each other’s faces. These guys didn’t even stop for breath.

I examined the expanse of the club – I felt like a passive bystander observing the moral destruction of the next generation.

Watching spindly girls and boys dancing like bambi on ice, all presumably talking about nothing to each other, I felt a strange pleasure rising up inside of me.

Resisting the depravity of this dark underworld – admittedly still being grinded upon by wasted Abercrombied bodies – was refreshing. As a self-righteous voyeur, I was enjoying this. It was ethnographic.

On my exit at the semi-respectable time of 2AM, I was accompanied by a pack of lads with t-shirts all emblazoned with the same slogan: “Birmingham 2014 – It was just banter”.

oh so many legends

It’s hard to deny that everyone you see looks and smells worse, and shouts louder, when you’re sober, but I felt a sick sense of superiority over everyone, nonetheless.

The pleasure at observing all people you know being revolting  at Sportsnite is twisted – but moreish.