If you grew up in London, Leicester Square Tiger Tiger was the only place to go out

As soon as you turned 18, you knew the only time to go out was a week night at Tiger Tiger Leicester Square. The people in the year above you at school had gone there and thus, it was your turn in year 13.

Monday nights were the best time to go, although sometimes, when you were feeling particularly crazy, you may have gone on a Thursday. Monday night held truer to the “student” night it claimed to be, although the only students you ever saw there were fellow fresh-faced sixth formers clutching their barely-used provisional driving licenses.

If you were a group of girls, you would become used to letting completely random boys you’d met somewhere between the tube station and the club pretend to be with you so that they would get in – and if you were unlucky enough to be a group of boys on your own, you’d hang around desperately trying to find a group of girls to walk in with you to assure you got in.

Upon entering, the smell of vodka and Red Bull would hit you like a tonne of bricks. There was only one thing to it: time to stock up at the bar – the drinks that you’d had on the tube were starting to wear off. In this short walk from the door to the bar you will have already bumped into at least four different people you knew. This was only the beginning.

Drinks in hand, going to the toilets was quite an adventure if you’re a girl: someone in your group would cry out that she wanted to get a nice group photo before everyone gets too mashed, which was fair enough, really. And so you’d spend what felt like hours in the toilets, taking endless selfies. This was also the moment you’d bump into a girl you barely knew from your year at school and you’d somehow end up having a heart to heart with them, and then never speak to them again. Such is the way with club toilet acquaintances.

Once out of the loos, we were really spoilt for choice. Of course, you wouldn’t start off the night on the floor of the entrance, so where to first? The pop room?

The pop room is a place of wonder. Always too hot, the coloured dancefloor (so authentic) a little too crowded… but the music was always on point. Banger after banger. The best kind of people congregated in the pop room: that is, the people unashamed to shout along to cheesy music.

When the pop room got too much, it was time to move to the polar opposite: the white room. The music is the white room was always on point, but there were just so many sofas. Why were there so many sofas? Did people sit on them?

Tiger Tiger’s décor leaves much to be desired: in the harsh flash of camera photos you see how sad the wall decorations are and how bare it really is, but in the vodka Red Bull haze it felt like the most grown up and sophisticated place you could be. That’s probably why there weren’t that many proper grown ups there.

After hours of grinding, slut dropping, and probably kissing some random boys from the school near you, it was time to take a chance on the stairs leading down to the cloak room, where you discover that one of your friends has obviously lost their ticket.

Drama resolved, it was time to brave the madness of the McDonald’s in Leicester Square. Something always went wrong. Whether they had run out of burgers or one of your friends got into a fight over queueing, there was no better feeling than walking to the bus stop clutching thousands of calories worth of greasy goodness.

Our clubbing life began with these glorious nights, so we’ll always hold a soft spot in our hearts for Leicester Square Tiger Tiger.